The Devil in the White Ballroom
by Experimental
Summary: The host club plans a Christmas ball only to find the ballroom has been doublebooked . . . by the black magic club. Can Tamaki and Nekozawa put aside their differences to achieve a common goal? or will the host club be left out in the cold?
1. The Devil in the White Ballroom

The Devil in the White Ballroom

It all started with a simple enough invitation. "And please make sure to leave your schedules open for this Friday night," host club king Suou Tamaki was saying to his female guests. "I would like nothing more than to dance with you all at the Christmas ball sponsored by our club." After which there was a chorus of exclamations of delight and promises to be there if they had to walk through three feet of snow.

It was only a second, however, before such proclamations were cut short by one of the girls raising a dubious voice. "Did you say _this_ Friday?"

"Why, yes, I did," he said unfazed.

"Will it be held in the main ballroom?"

"Of course. The same as always." He tried to hide his growing apprehension.

"And, by any chance, will it commence at eight o'clock in the evening?"

"Why, that is the plan, yes." By this time Haruhi and Kyouya and Mori had gathered around.

"I'm sorry, Tamaki-sama, but you did say _this Friday_, correct?"

And seeing his discomfort, the rest of the host club joined them. "Yes, yes, that's what I said!" Tamaki repeated, trying his hardest not to lose his cool. "Why, pray tell, do you keep asking such questions?"

"Is there a problem?" said Kyouya, adjusting his glasses.

The girl who had raised the issue blushed faintly. "It's just that I heard the black magic club is going to be observing the winter solstice on the same night, in the exact same place, at the exact same time."

By this time both her colleagues and the host club were looking between she and Tamaki in confusion. "That simply can't be," the latter was saying with an affected air of calm reassurance that was quickly showing its transparency at the mere mention of the dreaded black magic club. "I got approval to use the ballroom that night from student programs myself."

"I certainly hope you're right," another girl piped up, to which her fellows nodded vigorously. "We'll be sorely disappointed otherwise. We were so looking forward to coming to the ball." Never mind the fact that they had only been notified of it just a few minutes before.

"There's got to be some mistake, is all!" Tamaki tried to reassure them.

"I'm sure there was," Haruhi deadpanned. "Let me guess what happened. You went down to the student programs department and started putting your moves on the woman behind the front desk, then when you knew you had her eating out of the palm of your hand you sweetly asked to reserve the ballroom for this Friday for your club. Then she said just as sweetly that she'd check and make sure just for you, and you, confident in your masculine charms, left without giving her time to actually do so and give you an answer."

When Tamaki just sat there and said nothing, Kyouya started. "Is that really what happened?"

"Okay," said Tamaki, "it was a lapse of judgment on my part."

"But what about the Christmas party?" the girls chorused.

"Yeah, milord," the twins chimed in, "you gonna go back on your promise after you get all our hopes up?"

All eyes glued on him, Tamaki gulped. "Of course not," he finally said with a nervous laugh. His confidence returned by the syllable. "The Christmas ball will go on as planned! Rest assured, ladies, this is just a little hiccup, nothing more! Everything will be sorted out by the appointed date!"

* * *

A Short While Later

* * *

"A little hiccup, huh?" Kyouya asked him frostily an hour later when the host club was alone in the third music room.

"I know, I know already," Tamaki said. "I dropped the ball."

"I guess I'm partly to blame. I should have known better than to leave something this important up to you."

"Why? I _am_ the club's president."

"Then it's high time you start acting like it!"

On the sidelines, the twins were putting up their noblest effort not to laugh out loud. "Uh-oh," Kaoru said, his fist held before his mouth like he were stifling a cough, "looks like Mommy and Daddy are fighting again."

"Someone won't be getting any tonight," Hikaru added, making his brother sputter.

Tamaki turned bright red at that. "Come on, Kyouya! I apologize. What else do you want from me? Blood?"

"I want you to fix this mess, that's what I want you to do." And with that Kyouya folded his arms across his chest, while the other mumbled something about tough love.

"We went and checked with student programming, and the host club really does have valid reservations for the ballroom that night," Honey said as he swung his legs beneath the table. "The thing is, so does the black magic club. So we got double-booked."

"But they got first dibs," Mori said, to which Honey nodded sadly.

"Then it's up to me." Catching his second wind, Tamaki stood abruptly, one clenched fist raised in determination. "I can't let our patronesses down at this stage in the game. A promise is a promise—"

"What's the plan, milord?" said the twins.

He flashed the table an evil smile. "I'm going to seduce the student programs lady—"

Fortunately Haruhi grabbed his ear before he could take his first step toward such a doomed plan of action. "No, you're not. You two are going to work this out like gentlemen."

"Like gentlemen?" Tamaki gave her a blank look.

Haruhi sighed. Maybe that wasn't the most appropriate choice of words. . . . "In a civilized negotiation of terms."

"With whom?"

As though on cue, the creaking of massive doors in a stone archway made the heads of everyone at the table turn. "The mysteriously appearing door again?" Hikaru asked an equally puzzled Kaoru. An eerie aura of darkness was emitted from the crack that had been opened between the doors, heralding a figure concealed like furniture in an empty house by a dark robe and bearing an evil-looking hand puppet. He said in an equally dark and mysterious, breathy voice like he had laryngitis, "_You rang?_"

Tamaki recoiled. "N-Nekozawa-sempai?"

"He booked the ballroom for the same time you did," Haruhi said, "so it's only fair you two should be the ones to work it out."

"You mean _negotiate_, with _him?_ Are you crazy?" Tamaki muttered something about surely being cursed for this, but in truth Nekozawa looked equally unenthusiastic about being there.

"Suou-kun," he said, "what's this I hear about your challenging my club's arrangements? Don't you know the observation of the winter solstice is crucial to the appeasement of the gods? Why do you hate the gods so much, Suou?"

"N-n-n-no, that's not it at all," Tamaki backpedaled. "I had no such intention! I have nothing but love for the gods!" And with that he laughed out loud. Needless to say, with a laugh like that no one was buying it, let alone Nekozawa.

"Poppycock! This filibustering is nothing but your sad attempt to use your club's popularity as leverage to cancel our saturnalia, when you know very well it has been an annual tradition for two years running—"

"That's malarkey! Our intentions are completely selfish. All _we_ want is to be able to hold _our_ club's Christmas party, also an annual tradition for two years running (if you count this year)—"

Nekozawa's mouth curved into a wicked smile. "Why, Suou-kun, I had no idea you had such a strong desire to be cursed."

That shot got through to its target. Tamaki put up one arm as though to protect himself from whatever evil should shoot his way and took a step backwards, stumbling over his chair. "C-cursed! No way. . . ." he sputtered, before giving up entirely, slumping over the table. "I give up. Raise the white flag, Kyouya! I can't risk such a fate for my baby."

"What the . . . You're not even trying! Have you already forgotten about your commitment to your guests?" Haruhi lambasted him. "What are you going to tell all those girls who were expecting their King Tamaki to come through for them, hm?"

"Hell hath no fury like a fangirl scorned," muttered a frightened Honey.

"You have to agree that's worse than any curse," Kyouya agreed, though it was doubtful whether even that fury was comparable to what terror lay within his awesome hidden power.

"They're right." Tamaki straightened himself solemnly. He said to Nekozawa: "I cannot afford to back down so easily. I, Suou Tamaki, gave my word that a Christmas ball would be held on that night, and, God help me, I fully intend to see it through. After all, I _am_ the host club King, and a king has a sacred duty to do right by his subjects. I did not found this host club almost two years ago just to run from any unpleasantness that arose with my tail between my legs. No, sir! Though we may seem but a ragtag bunch of Adonises, we have survived the goring of fiercer boars than this counterfeit lord of flies who stands before us—yes, and come out all the stronger for it! We will not go quietly into the night! We will not give up without a fight!" He pointed his finger at his rival dramatically as he barked, "Nekozawa Umehito, prepare yourself!"

Honey and Mori gave their posing king a hearty round of golf applause, though the rest could only stare. It wasn't so much that it took gall to oppose the black magic club, so much as it took gall to make such a horrendous ultimatum before anything but a bathroom mirror.

"Heh. This is a waste of our time," said an unimpressed Nekozawa. "You put up a noble effort, Suou, but we of the black magic club have the ballroom solidly booked for that night and you know you don't have a leg to stand on."

"Not necessarily."

All eyes turned to Kyouya, who had spoken. "What do you mean, 'not necessarily'?" said Haruhi.

"Only this," the host club's vice president said pointedly. "It has come to my attention that ever since the start of the latter term the black magic club has been struggling to remain afloat. In fact, popularity has decreased so rapidly in the last two months the student council has threatened to cut their funding if they do not find some way to contribute usefully to the school culture. Their recruitment rate is dismal. Active interest among the student populace is lacking in unhealthy levels for ten months out of the year. In fact, the only times the club makes any significant amount of money are around Halloween, Obon, and White Day—when, if I remember right, they sponsored a rather dodgy bake sale that had to be closed down by the health department. They've tried selling black magic paraphernalia—voodoo dolls, emo poetry pamphlets, love potions, Holy Santos candles—but proceeds are a mere fraction of what the host club makes in a week, and not enough to pull the black magic club out of the red."

Nekozawa gulped.

Kyouya adjusted his glasses. "Am I incorrect?"

"No," the other admitted, and not without a great deal of difficulty. "You're correct. The Beelzenev merchandise is, right now, our main source of income. I've been told the cuteness of his image is . . . _irresistible_." And so saying, he held up a rather adorable key chain as evidence, sadly.

"So, in short, the student body sees the black magic club as a joke?" Haruhi said.

The twins winced beside her. "Brutally honest as always. Spare the poor guy, would you?"

She frowned. "Well, I'm just saying." It wasn't like she was questioning his masculinity or anything, was it?

"It's true," Nekozawa said. "This Friday's saturnalia was to be our grand re-entry into the ring of student programming as a top contender."

"So, you need to regain your former popularity in order to stay alive as a club?" said Haruhi, the wheels turning visibly in her head.

"_Njet!_ We need to dramatically _increase_ our popularity if we can expect to survive. Which is why we cannot afford to concede our reservation of the ballroom to the host club under any circumstances."

"Under any circumstances?" Haruhi echoed.

Somewhere under his cloak and dark wig, Nekozawa's eye twitched. "That's what I said. Under any circumstances."

"Why?" Hikaru and Kaoru looked up at Haruhi. "What do you have in mind?"

Despite Tamaki's silent pleas for her to stuff it, Haruhi said as though to herself: "It just seems to me that there's an easy solution to this problem that could end up benefiting both parties. The black magic club desperately needs to increase its popularity—popularity which we have in spades—whereas the host club is called by a sense of duty to do right by its members."

"O-only insofar as we will not be cursed," Tamaki added in a meek voice.

"The answer is simple," Haruhi went on, ignoring him. "Both our clubs should share the ballroom. The black magic club gets the notoriety our presence provides, and we keep our promise and send our members off on their holiday happy. Come on, I'm surprised that didn't occur to any of you."

"But how do you suggest doing that?" the twins asked with a shrug. "We can't just split the ballroom in half."

"Yeah. Even if we do split the space, we still have to put up with their weird music and dark vibes."

"I don't like the sound of that," Honey pouted.

But there was a wide grin planted firmly on Kyouya's lips. "But that isn't what Haruhi is suggesting. Is it, Haruhi?"

She shook her head. "I think we should combine the Christmas ball and the winter solstice thing into one party."

Tamaki and Nekozawa started. "_What?_" screamed the one, tearing his hair, while the other wailed, "Sacrilege!"

"Haruhi . . ." Tamaki put his hand on her shoulder in a vain attempt to draw her aside. "I realize it's because of your gentle, er, shall we say, fairer nature that you feel compelled to say such a thing—and I do believe in the purity of your intentions, honest to goodness—but we can't expect you to understand the delicate nature of this type of situation . . ."

"And why would that be?" Her expression grew darker than even the black magic club president could manage and Tamaki shivered. "Is it because I'm a commoner, Sempai?"

Tamaki slithered away murmuring something unintelligible because of the foot in his mouth.

Though in truth Nekozawa looked every bit as much the worse for wear at the mere thought of sharing the event with his arch rival. "Jesus," Haruhi muttered, "I don't see what you guys' problem is. You two are practically clones of each other—"

"I am nothing like him!" Tamaki hissed.

"I can agree to those terms," Nekozawa said.

That shut the other up right quick. Even the other members of the host club had to blink and keep from falling off their chairs at that news. They had to wonder if they had heard him right.

"If it's a matter of my club's survival, I am willing to make a few sacrifices, even if that includes sharing this important event with my arch-nemesis. After all, who would I be to a club of ours' sort if I did not understand the principle of sacrifice?"

Perhaps with some sense of pride at being considered a nemesis, Tamaki straightened and sobered. "Thank you, Nekozawa-sempai. I think you just saved my skin."

Haruhi sighed in relief. "See what happens when you men put aside your differences?"

"However," said the other, "the host club will have to make some concessions of its own. I warn you, Suou, this will not be some cute pageant you can make all lovey-dovey and put Santas and snowmen all over."

"You have a deal," said Kyouya, though it seemed to be Nekozawa who was making the deal with the Devil and not the other way around. "We will let the black magic club have primary creative control—within a few limits, of course. On one tiny little condition. A technicality, really. But without it, the whole deal is off and we will contest your reservation of the ballroom to the fullest extent within our power."

"Kyouya, what are you doing?" Tamaki stage-whispered, but Nekozawa bravely agreed, "Anything."

After all, it was only one condition, and he said a little one at that.

Big mistake. Kyouya flashed him a charming grin, which could only mean one thing.

"You and your club officers' bodies shall belong to the host club for one night. In short, you will become hosts yourself."

Nekozawa's confidence evaporated as the realization of what hell he had doomed himself and his club to slowly sank in. What had he done? He should have known better than to fall for Kyouya's innocent airs. _Behold the awesome power of the shadow king!_

As though on cue, a loud, high-pitched peal of laughter filled the air, and the high-powered motor hidden beneath the third music room floor started up like a rumble of thunder, shaking the very walls themselves. The crystals on the chandeliers rattled. The water in Honey's glass rippled. Nekozawa paled. It was truly a portent of a coming disaster; and he realized then that there was something even greater to fear than the vice president, as a door opened in the middle of the floor and a revolving platform slowly rose out of it, topped like a wedding cake by _her_, looming ominous like a colossus over the proceedings—the Gorgons' long-lost fourth sister, his worst nightmare, the host club's self-appointed manager and signboard girl.

Houshakuji Renge.

"Wonderful!" she practically sang as the platform came to a stop with a reverberating clunk and hiss of pistons. "They say a dream is a wish your heart makes, and O how I have dreamt of this day: the day when Nekozawa Umehito, black magic club president, would return to me seeking my guidance!" And she clasped her hands in joy.

"Who's seeking?" he started to mumble, but she leaped down and pointed her dreaded finger at him and he panicked like it were a beam of pure sunlight penetrating his defenses.

"I admire your courage," she said. "The first step to change is admitting you need help." Although Nekozawa wasn't the only one wondering who had admitted what. "Your training begins tomorrow at sixteen hundred hours sharp, soldier! Be there or don't bothering showing your face on Friday!"

Nekozawa snapped to a frightened attention. "Yes, ma'am!"

Drill Sergeant Renge began pacing the room with hands behind her back. "They say you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Well, I say there's no reason we can't turn a silk purse into Prada." She made a fist. "With my help, this year's Christmas Saturnalia will be an affair Ouran Academy won't soon forget!"

And the heavens trembled and her eyes shone like fire, and the host club was very afraid indeed.

All except Kyouya, of course, who looked very satisfied as he clapped Nekozawa on the back, nearly knocking him over, and said, "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

* * *

_tsuzuku_


	2. The Host Club Manager At Work

_A/n: Descriptions of the black magic club members come from **chapter 41** of the manga, though quite a bit of guessing was done on their characterization. The only named (besides Nekozawa) and female member at this point is **Kanazuki Reiko**, who appears to be out to curse Honey at the beginning of the chapter in the manga (and has 18 such curses already under her belt). I realize what an inconvenience it is to include characters who haven't appeared in book form or translation yet, so I must ask the reader to simply bear with me for now, and just hope that nothing I've written is completely and utterly out of character. A huge thank you goes out to **Ninja Shen** for bringing this to my attention. You can download the raw scans for yourself at **sakuradance-dot-net**._

* * *

It seemed the next day as though that Friday night was all that was on anyone's mind. In the host club's meeting that afternoon, it was the only thing Haruhi's guests would talk about, and that was not without a great deal of dread.

"Don't worry," she reassured them with a smile. "Tamaki-sempai worked it all out with the black magic club yesterday."

"That's a relief."

"Then the ball will go on as he promised?"

Well . . . not exactly, she resisted the temptation to say. "Actually, we've decided to do something a little different this year. Just a tad unorthodox. We're going to share the ballroom with them, so it'll probably be a bit darker than what you might be used to from us, but I think you'll still find it to be rather interesting."

Boy, that sounded like a load of bull even to her ears, but the girls sitting across from her took the news with solemn expressions. "You mean," one said to the others in a low voice, "no Santas or cute snowmen?"

"That doesn't mean it's going to be austere and unromantic, does it?" said another. "Can we still give gifts?"

While yet another tried to reassure them, "I heard in other countries the holidays actually have a more serious meaning—like about baby Jesus or . . . or being thankful for community ties or a bountiful harvest . . . or something. . . ."

Good grief, rich people were all the same. She was just waiting for them to say something about the charming scrappiness of the poor, pooling their pittances together around a tiny wood fire against the cold, or some such Tamaki-ism of equal or lesser value.

Before the others could look too disappointed, Haruhi waved her hands. "It'll be lots of fun, though, I promise!" Suddenly she realized that, other than the line Nekozawa had fed them, she wasn't at all sure what the ball would entail herself, but, "You'll just have to trust that our president and vice president know what they're doing. After all, it's not as though they're new at this sort of thing."

Luckily the twins sent her out on a quick grocery run before she could wear out her bluffing skills too much.

When she returned at four o'clock, the host club had already been closed to its customers, and the third music room looked significantly different from just a short time before.

* * *

The Host Club Manager At Work

* * *

The drapes were drawn, the chandeliers turned down, and candelabras lit the room with flickering light. Yet the room was surprisingly crowded and busy for that hour. All the host club officers were there, as well as a few other shady-looking individuals who were clearly the other officers of the black magic club, in addition to the Nekozawa maid and driver who had no doubt come to pick up their young master and been waylaid by Renge and her makeshift training ground of character development.

The young woman in question could presently be found circling Nekozawa—who had somehow been cajoled once again into removing his cloak, though this time he had managed to keep his dark wig—with a state-of-the-art professional digital camera, which she clicked in his face as she fed him his motivation. . . .

"More angst! Remember, you are a Mephistophelean prince of the shadows, banished from the light, which you can only cope with by becoming a dastardly charmer of maidens' hearts and seducer of men's souls! The lonesomeness to which you were doomed for eternity is a heavy burden. Heavy! It weighs down on your limbs, your bones. You clothe yourself in the dark and wickedness to hide your suffering. Show me the extent of your tragic darkness! Think Gackt!"

"Like this?" he tried, striking a world-weary pose and soulful gaze that almost would have made Tamaki proud. Haruhi didn't care what the two of them said: there must have been a shared ancestor in there somewhere. Those two were poured from the same mold.

"Good—" click, "—good—" click, "—very good!" Renge paused in her shooting to pump a fist in triumph. "My plan is starting to come together! I knew when you set your mind to it you would discover the character you were destined to become! On the surface: a mysterious and dangerous occult-type persona shunned into a life of villainy for the forbidden allure the dark arts hold for him. But underneath there is a noble soul yearning to be understood! Like Jareth the goblin king—or Vincent in TV's _Beauty and the Beast_. It's the perfect foil for Tamaki-sempai's lonely prince character!"

Needless to say, by the stars twinkling in her eyes she was getting way too into it, so that Haruhi didn't even bother thinking of asking what in the world she was talking about this time.

The three boys and a girl standing on the sidelines who comprised the aforementioned shady group of characters caught her attention instead. Haruhi recognized the girl by her black, square-cut hair, heavy-lidded eyes and pouty lips as belonging to the instigator of one particular episode of their summer—the voodoo princess of 1-D, who had developed an awkward fascination with one of the host club's own. "Isn't that Honey-sempai's stalker?" Haruhi said as she came up beside Kyouya.

"You mean Kanazuki Reiko?" he said, not looking up from his ledger. "So it is. And working on her thirty-fourth curse of the school year, I hear."

"Thirty-fourth . . ." Haruhi echoed.

Kanazuki looked abnormally intense. "President Nekozawa, give it your best!" she was cheering on their club's leader. "And never fear: Vengeance shall be ours after the holiday vacation!"

When there was no response from behind her, she shot her three gawking clubmates a look Haruhi couldn't see, but must have been fearsome on a biblical scale if the boys' reactions were any indication. They straightened up lickety-split with a chorus of "Yes, vengeance!" and "Good luck, Mr President!"

"Thirty-seventh," Haruhi corrected to herself, feeling a sweatdrop tickle her brow. "I'm starting to think maybe Tamaki-sempai's fear of Nekozawa is just a little misplaced—"

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the devil she spoke of was at their side, running his fingers through his hair and posing dramatically. "Have I allowed that Delilah's chumminess with Honey-sempai to cloud my judgment—been lulled into a misguided state of ambivalence by her siren's song of cordiality, sailing unknowing toward the jagged rocks of damnation? Is that what you're thinking, Haruhi?" He clasped his hands to his chest in exaggerated rapture. "I'm honored that you would concern yourself so with my spiritual well being! It's a sign, that's what it is! Try as you might to act indifferent, you cannot deny it: you worry about Daddy as much as he worries about you!"

But Haruhi was no longer paying attention. For one, Kanazuki's manner switched instantaneously to decidedly nonthreatening as she and Honey suddenly waved to each other across the room in a sickeningly cute way; and for two, she'd simply learned to tune her upperclassman's onanistic blatherings out. She said instead to Kyouya, while their host club king rambled on, "So what's Renge's deal this time?"

"You mean with the camera?" (At the same time as Kyouya said that, Renge turned her attentions to the other black magic club members, who panicked and glanced longingly toward the exits, but could not escape the camera's cruelly indifferent lens.) "They're promotion photos for the saturnalia. Since the black magic club are to be our honorary hosts on Friday, it is only fitting our customers have the opportunity to learn something about them before choosing their dance partners. If there's one thing to be said for our ladies, it is that they are fastidious when it comes to educating themselves before they commit to a host selection."

It sounded to Haruhi like he was equating the process to buying a new car, but she knew better than to raise that thought with Kyouya. He would just say it was _absolutely_ the same as shopping for a new car.

Before she could even open her mouth, however, Renge blew her whistle, causing half the room to nearly jump out of their skins. "All right, slimes, you're ready to move on to the next level. We will now commence the dancing lesson," she said, and leveled an index finger at Tamaki, who promptly snapped out of his lonely monologue and seated himself at the grand piano. "Maestro, strike up the waltz!"

"Ma'am!" he saluted, and struck one up.

As the music of Chopin filled the room, Renge turned to Nekozawa. "I'm letting you off easy this time. Since this _is_ partly your club's function, I won't object to your occult vocabulary. Who knows, girls might actually get a big kick out of that freakish persona of yours in the right setting. As I said before, dark and mysterious (up to a point) is always fashionable. But as it is first and foremost a social function, there is one matter I absolutely cannot cut corners on. You will be a gentleman, even if that be a creepy gentleman, as even a creepy gentleman must be proficient in the dance—"

"Yeah, yeah," Nekozawa sighed boredly. "Just because I'm socially awkward doesn't mean I'm inept, you know. Fujioka-kun?" He extended his hand toward her. "Will you do me the honor?"

"Um," was all Haruhi managed before the black magic club president swept her into his arms.

His poise and timing were amazing, even with the quick tempo Tamaki had no doubt chosen hoping to thwart his arch-nemesis, so that it was Haruhi who had to struggle to keep up. Astonished—though not sure why she should be, given Nekozawa's impressive lineage—she looked up at his fair face; but he was concentrating stubbornly on some point over her shoulder as he stepped lightly to Renge's "One-two-three, one-two-three," barked out through a megaphone. Haruhi blinked. He really was taking all of this very seriously.

The Nekozawa maid and chauffeur clapped softly from over by the window sill, the former wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. "Wai! Big brudder's a libertine!" said Kirimi beside her (courtesy of her vast mental database of girls' manga and with no idea what she was truly saying).

Kuretake sniffed in joy. "That he is, little mistress. That he is."

Renge put down the megaphone after a moment to sigh. "Wonderful—a thousand times wonderful!" she said dreamily. "Crack pairing."

"What are you going on about now?" Tamaki mumbled at the keyboard. "Don't you mind seeing your beloved Haruhi in the arms of another man?"

"Not at all. Like I told you before—"

"Yeah, yeah, homosexual relationships are something different."

"Besides, just the thought of Haruhi caught up in a love pentagon—no! a love _pentagram_—is a fabulous thing to behold—"

Tamaki could stand it no longer. He slammed his hands down on the keyboard and stretched one arm out dramatically. "Haruhi-i-i-i, Daddy loves you! Always remember that and endure. . . . _Endure_. . . ."

Which prompted a nice thwack on the back of the head with a tabloid paper fan. "Who said you could quit playing?"

The black magic club's lesser officers, however, were not faring quite so well. Kanazuki was at least happily stumbling her way through the waltz with her first-year classmate, but the second- and third-year boys had nothing but grumbles about having to lead Hikaru and Kaoru. After their partners stepped on both their left feet simultaneously for the umpteenth time, and apologized profusely, Hikaru and Kaoru had had enough.

"Uhn, this is getting taxing," Hikaru moaned to his partner as he rotated his shoulders. "How are you three supposed to make proper hosts at the ball at this rate?"

"Have some pity on us, will you?" said Kaoru. "It's one thing for us to have to dance with boys, but it's quite another when neither of them even knows how to lead. And they call themselves men."

Hikaru was at his side in an instant. "Perhaps we should show them how it's done." And with that he pulled his brother toward him, one arm around his waist, the other hand clasping Kaoru's. "As long as you don't mind. . . ."

"Need you ask? You know I always follow where you lead," Kaoru breathed, instantly on the same page.

The three boys of the black magic club looked incredibly uncomfortable as the two began to waltz before them, though Kanazuki was quite speechless in wonderment. "Holy mother of Horus," said the second-year boy. "And I thought _our_ club was into some messed up things."

Kanazuki didn't even hear them. "All that time spent with Honey-sempai, I never knew what else I was missing!"

Which, needless to say, garnered the weird stares of her male companions. Still, it must have been refreshing to the host club to know the Hitachiin brothers had procured one more convert to the brotherly love act.

* * *

. . . And The Tribulation Continued

* * *

"You know," Nekozawa sighed deeply to Kuretake at one point in the afternoon, "you might want to just take Kirimi home. I don't know how much longer I will be."

"Perhaps an ice cream _is_ in order," the maid agreed, tugging at his little sister's hand, but she just pulled right back.

"But I want to see big brudder transform into a charming prince character!" Kirimi whined, as though she expected it to happen at any moment with the sparkles and pomp of one of her manga, and refused to be moved. A dead weight.

"Perhaps it wouldn't be so detrimental if she stayed," Kyouya said over his ledger. "After all, her knowledge on the subject is quite extensive."

"You're not helping," Haruhi told him.

"Neko-chan? Neko-chan?"

Nekozawa turned and came face to face with Mori's stoic countenance. It didn't match the voice. He looked down. "Oh, Haninozuka. You mean me."

"You have to call me Honey now," his classmate said with a cute wink. _Now that you're part of the family, that is,_ he seemed to imply ominously. "But we have to talk about the black magic club's music collection."

"What's wrong with the music?" Tamaki wanted to know. As he joined them he took the stack of jewel cases out of Honey's hands. "Mozart's 'Requiem,'" he read aloud, tossing it aside, "Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring,' the Firebird suite, 'Night on Bald Mountain,' new age crap . . . Ha! The Bulgarian Women's Choir! That oughtta put the fear of God into them. Here, Honey-sempai, put this on the 'maybe' pile." Tamaki squinted at the next one. "Who's Arvo Part?"

Nekozawa snatched the cases back protectively. "That's Latin choral music. It's very inspirational."

"Yeah, and completely useless. Don't you have any of that gothic-punk-emo stuff?"

"Who do you take me for?"

"What about Kanazuki? She looks like she might be into that sort of thing—"

"You're one to talk, Suou. All I ever see you listening to is classical music."

"Not anymore, it isn't," said Tamaki, grabbing the CDs back again. "Now, I already agreed: no Santa songs, no love-love winter ballads, no 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.' You guys need to do your part to liven up this little soiree of ours. After all, it is the black magic club's big, second annual winter solstice saturnalia, right? Now, this is what I'm talking about!" He flashed one CD in Nekozawa's face. "'The Devil's Trill.' I like the sound of that. It's nefarious."

"I don't get it. Yesterday he acted like he would die if we shared the ballroom, and today he wants the atmosphere as evil as possible?" Nekozawa looked to Haruhi for help, who shrugged.

"I don't know, he just does this. Leave him alone with it long enough, and he'd think Emmett Kelly hobo clowns would be the host club theme of the century."

"I see," said Nekozawa, who apparently didn't.

"I hate to be the one to say it," said Tamaki, though he didn't seem to really, "but this event is going to have to increase its sex appeal if we can hope to bring as much attention to the black magic club as possible. Now . . ." He placed a hand dramatically over his breast. "We hosts have the feminine angle covered, but it will take more than our charms alone to awaken both sexes to the sensual appeal of the dark arts. That's your field. You have to dress it up, pimp it out, make them understand _why_ they can't live without black magic in their lives! What is it that young people find so appealing about satanism nowadays?"

"_Pantheists!_ We're pantheists, Suou, not satanists," Nekozawa shot back. "There's a big difference."

"Whatever." Tamaki waved the correction off.

"Ne, Tama-chan," Honey asked his president upon the mention of satanism, "this year's Christmas party isn't really going to be scary, is it?"

"Actually, my customers have been worried about the same thing—well," Haruhi corrected herself, "I guess it's more accurate to say they're worried about being preached to and bored to death."

"We've never done anything like this before. Are you two sure it's going to work?"

For the first time that afternoon, Tamaki and Nekozawa found themselves at a lack for words and just exchanged glances. Both had been so sure of their purpose that, if they were to be honest, they hadn't given much thought to what anyone outside their respective clubs would think.

"Fortunately," Kyouya saved the day, "there _is_ a precedent for just this sort of thing."

The five gathered around turned to him expectantly.

"At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago," he began, "organizers planned as a publicity stunt a ball that promised to have local and fair officials dancing with exotic girls from the various villages of the Midway in their native costumes. When the Victorian society of the time heard of the plans, they worried what a blow it would deal to the mores that a world's fair such as theirs was supposed to set an example of, especially regarding sexuality—what with the revealing costumes and wild dances of the visiting natives. Then there was the concern about accommodating the customs of certain peoples, like headhunters, which led the newspapers to dub the event the 'Ball of the Midway Freaks.'"

Honey bit his lower lip. "Sounds creepy."

"Well, they weren't really freaks," Haruhi reassured him.

"Speaking of creepy," Tamaki said under his voice, pointing discreetly over his elbow, "does that thing _have_ to sit there like that?" He was speaking, of course, of Beelzenev, who currently sat propped up in his own chair on the sidelines. Tamaki suppressed a shiver. "I feel like it's watching me with it's nasty little eyes."

"How did it turn out?" Nekozawa asked Kyouya, ignoring him.

Kyouya adjusted his glasses. Apparently he was reading from a marginal note. "Contrary to public expectation, pretty well, actually. It wasn't a disaster at least, and the mayor enjoyed himself, though it certainly was outrageous for its time. In the end I believe it turned out to be just a spot of harmless, good old-fashioned imperialistic fun for everyone."

Good old-fashioned imperialism, huh? Haruhi felt faint.

"Now then, as for the rest of you. . . ." Drill Sergeant Renge said as she paced before the rest of the black magic club, the twins standing at attention at her back. "As you must be well aware, we at the host club aim to please by providing a range of some of the most desirable types of male characters for the discerning young lady's pleasure. If you look hard enough, you will see that even within the realm of horror and fantasy RPGs and glam rock, or simply among the most charming villains of your typical girls' manga, dark characters also fall into certain reoccurring categories. For example . . ."

She stopped at the first-year boy at the end of the line and leveled her finger at him. He started. "The imp!" Renge said.

"Imp?" he echoed uncertainly.

"Yes. The imp is a trickster character, essentially the loli-shota rascal type all grown up. He sports a devilish grin and messed up hair at all times." And so saying, she proceeding to further mess up his already fairly tousled hair. "Often he is characterized by pointy little canine teeth that hint at his fox-like nature. His has a noble lineage that traces back to such beloved characters as Coyote and Brer Rabbit, and Robin Goodfellow. You never know what the imp is going to pull next, and therein lies his attraction."

The willowy second-year who was next in line gulped as he saw Renge coming toward him. She hummed as she looked him up and down. "I've got it. You will be the occult variation on the wild type. Like Mori-sempai's stoic type, the occult wild type is prized for his relative reticence and eccentricity. He is ambivalent in social situations, and many people fear him because of his uncanny relationship with animals—especially rodents and crows." Indeed, very proud of her intuition, Renge patted him on the shoulder and nodded, "Yes, I shall have some brought in special for you on Friday. It will be so dramatic!"

"But I—"

"You're impressed by my intuition, I know," Renge cut him off. "Sometimes it even surprises me!"

Needless to say, that wasn't much reassurance to the second-year boy.

"And as for you," she said to the third-year, a light-haired boy who had something of Kyouya about his presence and Tamaki about his poise, "you are the quintessential Dr Jekyll character: handsome and charming and witty, but severely cynical about society and life in general. The war between the id and the ego pulls your soul this way and that, wreaking havoc on your moral fiber, making death look a more and more attractive option every day! Alas poor Yorick . . ." Renge produced a skull from somewhere, which she contemplated at once in horror and fascination like some Baroque vanity portrait before tossing it at him. "The ephemerality of all things is like springtime blossoms scattered in the breeze. Gracious insanity: that is your motivation."

She snapped her fingers. Kaoru handed off a small bunch of notebooks to Hikaru, who placed them into Renge's waiting hands. "You should learn your character types well by Friday. In the meantime, you can practice some lines to get the feel—"

"What about Kanazuki?" the boys asked when Renge ignored her completely.

The twins grinned at one another.

"She's perfect just the way she is," said Renge. "Miss Kanazuki is already fully in touch with her devious persona, and as a woman already has all the tools necessary to play a hostess in her natural feminine grace and good looks."

Kanazuki beamed, and her companions, notebooks shoved into their hands, glared at her mutinously.

"I suppose the more I think about it," Nekozawa was in the meantime thinking aloud, "a little frivolousness and sensuality is in keeping with the spirit of the saturnalia. Perhaps the precise thing the club needs is to not take itself so seriously." Tamaki nodded vigorously and put a chummy arm around Nekozawa's shoulders. That garnered a glare from his upperclassman. "However, I must admit I was rather reluctant to let the host club in on our festivities for fear of being made a fool of," he said with a warning edge in his voice.

To which Tamaki was completely oblivious. "But now you're warming to us, is that it?" Though nobody remembered Nekozawa saying that. "You see the usefulness of our charms to a truly pagan affair. It will be our privilege if we of the host club can do a little justice to the ancients, who so truthfully and beautifully captured the eroticism in all things in their art and poetry of eons ago. I congratulate you, Sempai. You have taken your first step into a new and glorious world."

"Then . . ." Ignoring that, Nekozawa caught his second wind as he produced a hand-written scroll. "Perhaps now is a good time to discuss the menu for this affair—"

"Oh, I don't think we'll be needing that," Tamaki said with a nonchalant laugh as he plucked it from the other's hands and discreetly handed it over to Kyouya to dispose of behind his back. He put one arm around his sempai's shoulders and drew him aside. "You just leave the food matter in the host club's capable hands, all right? After all, we do keep detailed records of our customers' likes and dislikes (and no one wants to be held accountable for any accidental food poisonings)—"

"What?"

"I was just saying you should save your accounts by sticking to ballroom decorating."

An awkward silence followed as Nekozawa just glared at him. "Sempai, everyone can hear it when you think out loud," Haruhi tried to point out, "and 'ballroom decorating' doesn't rhyme at all with 'accidental food poisoning'—"

"Haruhi," Tamaki gritted out through a plastered-on grin, "don't help me."

"Fine," said Nekozawa. "Our club will handle the mood. We'll hang some black drapery, bring in some dead branches and antique candelabras, and deck the halls with boughs of holly."

"Good!" Tamaki clapped his hands. "I'm glad that's all settled. My, I feel like so much ground has been covered already. Shall we call it a day, Kyouya?"

As the members of the host club wandered away, Nekozawa chose not to follow them but instead glanced around the third music room. On one side, Tamaki—true to Haruhi's word—was talking animatedly about this or that idea that struck his fancy with Kyouya, while on the other his own club officers were working very hard trying to get into character, reciting lines to themselves or posing dramatically (or, in the first-year's case, looking to the twins for pointers on mischief-making), and Honey and Kanazuki took a time out for tea for working so hard.

When he thought everyone else was too occupied to notice, Nekozawa allowed a small, proud smile to form on his lips. Who knew—despite the embarrassment that still lingered over the fact that they did, in fact, need the host club's help, perhaps things would turn out for the best in the end. Perhaps the end result would even exceed his expectations.

Nekozawa didn't think anyone had caught that smile, not even eagle-eyed Kyouya; but Haruhi noticed—for a split second when she glanced over her shoulder. And she kept that to herself.

* * *

_To be continued . . ._


	3. The Hour Approacheth

The Day Before The Ball

* * *

As the day of the Christmas Saturnalia neared, what had once seemed like a long shot at best began to come together into a completely workable whole. The main ballroom had closed its doors and a transformation had begun inside courtesy of the black magic club's people—like a caterpillar in its cocoon growing into a frightening and magnificent butterfly. Honey made calls to his family's trusted caterers, the twins to their grandmother's friends in the fashion industry, and Kyouya to his hundred-man strong personal police force. Renge and Kanazuki had done well as signboard girls for their respective clubs, using the boys' hosting time as an opportunity to promote its new honorary members within the black magic club. Nekozawa and his cohorts' profiles on the host club website were popular among their regular customers, and already each one had a burgeoning fan club.

There was Minagi, the elegant, fair-haired third-year boy with a poetic obsession with death; Torihara, a second-year whose profile claimed he had supernatural abilities to communicate with animals; the mischievous first-year Fukazaki who combined the Hitachiin brothers' unpredictability with Honey's age-defying cuteness; and last but certainly not least as far as the other half of the student body was concerned, Kanazuki Reiko, the voodoo princess with the Bette Davis eyes whose mere presence on the site had assured a more sizeable turnout of male students than previous host club affairs.

Which was, of course, not to mention the black prince of the blackest of black clubs himself, frontman of this iniquitous quintet Nekozawa Umehito, about whom rumor circled of a damned, exotic lineage that made him shun the light, bringing him (just as Renge had predicted) a legion of sympathetic fangirls swooning with a reverential, almost longingly fearful fascination. Like moths to flames their gazes were drawn during host club activities to that ominous door cloaked in shadow at the end of the room, wooed by that sorrowful stare that looked out at them from the website and through their computer screens, proclaiming incessantly the nefarious cuteness of the Beelzenev merchandise; and should the good King of Cats himself appear and singe their tender wings with a curse, that with which they received their damnation would have been the joy of martyrs who have their eyes on heaven singing "Ia, ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!"

Yes, without a doubt Nekozawa's allure had been solidly secured by that covert and unholy marriage of Ohtori connections and Houshakuji enthusiasm, with repressed teenage hormones thrown in as a mistress on the side.

So too—and not to be shown up by their own president—in their character development sessions with Renge after the clubs' respective meetings, the black magic club boys traded their initial reluctance for an earnest effort. But even that was not always enough for Renge.

"No, no, no. Wrong, it's all wrong. It's lukewarm, that's what it is!" she was currently lambasting Fukazaki after he innocently tried one of his lines on her. "I'm not feeling your mischievousness. You need to speak cool, uncouth-like. R-r-roll your 'r's like a gangster, just like I'm doing r-r-right now! Add 'nya' to the end of ever-r-rything you say!"

She sounded just like a yakuza boss and Fukazaki straightened up. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Yes, ma'am what?"

"Yes, ma'am-nya!"

"That's more like it. And you." She turned to Minagi. "Your diction is not up to par. Have you been gargling with marbles like I told you?"

"Erm, I tried," said the third-year, "but . . ."

"Then let's hear something."

Shooting them both a nervous glance, he cleared his throat and started reading in a dreamy voice out of a well-worn notebook, "When I see your pale skin I am reminded of the bleached bones lying in the cesspools of Gehenna. Dance with me a little longer so that I might for a short while forget how fleeting this body is for the material world—"

"Stop right there! Oh boy, oh boy. Must it always come down to me?" Renge asked herself as she shook her head. "First of all, get rid of the word 'cesspool.' No girl wants to hear that in the same sentence as her looks. Try a bed of violets instead."

"Why would there be bleached bones in a bed of violets—"

"Just work with me, here. It's poetic juxtaposition. You need poetic juxtaposition or else you'll just freak people out. Honestly, don't any of you bunch listen to Gackt? And I'd add 'under the pale moonlight' and change 'pale skin' to 'fair' or 'porcelain white'—makes one's pallor sound more healthy."

"I see what you mean!" he said, scribbling down everything she said.

"And for Baal's sake, man, _annunciate!_ You're supposed to be my most _charming_ creation, polite to a fault. How are you going to make anyone tremble with ungodly delight if they can't understand half of what you're saying? Did you bring your marbles?"

"They're right here, but—"

She put her hands on her hips and glared. "And where are you going to put them?"

Seeing as so far no snakes had come out of her head and everyone was in agreement that they wanted to keep it that way, Minagi quickly gobbled the marbles up. "The way your skin glows like porcelain under this pale moonlight . . ." he tried to say around the marbles, but it sounded more like, "Uh uayoo thin gwozrye borshlan—"

"I can't take it anymore!" Torihara wailed. He dragged himself to the love seat where Kanazuki was sitting and sipping a cup of Hescafe instant coffee with Tamaki, cringing as a large black rat climbed in and out from under the collar of his uniform blazer. "Reason with her, please, Kanazuki, as one woman to another! She's killing us here!"

"You're the one complaining," Renge snapped back, her patience suddenly showing its wear, "when it's my vision you three are ruining? There's only one more afternoon of practice before your debuts as hosts at the ball, and so far your efforts have not been exactly what I'd call encouraging. If things keep up this way, half our guests are going to run out in terror before the first dance is even over, if they don't collapse from boredom and embarrassment first."

But Tamaki was calm as he said over his shoulder, "Relax, Renge. It won't be nearly as bad as that."

"What makes you so confident?" Kaoru looked up at him, one earbud of a shared iPod in his ear. "You have an edge we don't?"

"No edge," Tamaki said. "Just faith, is all."

"Faith?"

"You might say in Nekozawa-sempai's devotion. Or just in the simple fact that nothing that bears our club's name has ever been known to be a complete failure."

"Famous last words," Hikaru murmured as he glanced up from the iPod screen. "But speaking of the devil, where the hell is Nekozawa? It doesn't seem like him to just abandon his club in their time of need."

Now that he mentioned it, it was a little strange that the one in question was missing from what was supposed to be his club's valuable preparation time. If he allowed himself to think about it long enough, the same thought occurred to Tamaki about Haruhi, who seemed to have slipped out at some indeterminate point in time. Not that it particularly bothered him, however; Mori and Honey had done the same after the club meeting, claiming other responsibilities.

"If I know anything about him," Tamaki said with a wave, "it's that even if you don't see it, Nekozawa is working just as hard to make tomorrow night a success as anyone else. He wants to ensure his club's survival, and that is something I can relate to. I'd feel exactly the same way if it were my club's future on the line."

"You do realize that it very well may be, don't you?" Kyouya asked, but the other pretended not to hear.

"Tamaki-sempai," Kanazuki said sweetly, as she leaned a hair closer to him. "There's something I have to ask you about in his stead. You might say it's a request, but I know President Nekozawa could never humble himself enough to ask you personally—"

"Anything, milady," Tamaki turned up the charm, gently raising her chin with the side of his index finger so that their eyes might meet. "Just say the word and your wish is my command."

"We have to discuss the matter of the bean ballot."

That low, blunt voice, very much not belonging to Kanazuki Reiko or any of her fairer sex, even should they be from the wrestling team of the Lobelia school for girls, made Tamaki bristle. "Bean . . . ballot," he echoed, deflated.

"Right," said one of the three boys who were leaning uncomfortably close in on the host king's tender moment with their clubmate. "It's something of a tradition with us."

"To decide who will be crowned the mock king, of course."

Like that was something Tamaki should have known already.

—o—

It was down the hall in the third science lab that Haruhi found Nekozawa sitting in the dark—the very room where, some months previous, they had first tried to help him overcome his photophobia so that he could be with his baby sister. It was after four in the afternoon, and the overcast winter sky was already beginning to darken, so he had no qualms about leaning by the window sans cloak and wig.

He turned toward the door when he heard it creak open so she could slip through. "Oh, Fujioka."

"Nekozawa-sempai . . . is it alright if I come in?"

"Please do," he said cordially enough, a smile blooming on his lips. His whole presence changed and became more approachable when he smiled genuinely like that, Haruhi noticed, without any of the creepiness of his club persona. In that way, too, he reminded her a lot of Tamaki. Even now, it felt like there was something being covered up behind that smile, something she couldn't quite place . . .

"I take it everyone must still be working hard to please Renge."

"Uh, yeah." Haruhi resisted the strong urge to tell the truth. "I guess so. I think they're probably wondering where you went, though."

"I just needed somewhere quiet to collect my thoughts for a moment or two," Nekozawa told her, as though he felt the need to beg _her_ pardon.

"I know how that is."

They fell into silence for a long awkward moment, just staring out the window, so that it startled Haruhi a little when he said suddenly, in a much graver tone of voice: "Fujioka-kun . . . er, Haruhi, if I may, can I ask you something in confidence?"

"Sure."

"Don't you ever find it tiresome? This act of yours, I mean. Pretending to be something you're not."

She shot him a strange look but a gentle smile as she said, "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Sempai."

"Well, pretending to be a boy, for one. And keeping your female classmates entertained believing you're a boy." It did not come as any surprise that Nekozawa knew about the host club's ruse after spending that weekend at his family's beach estate, when he had seen her in the dress her father had "accidentally" packed for her; but his admission must have taken her aback somewhat, because when he saw the look on her face, he quickly backpedaled: "I mean, there's nothing wrong with it if you're into that sort of thing, and I don't mean to imply you're not actually sincere in your conversations but . . . Well, doesn't it ever bother you that the flattering things you have to say might not be coming from the heart?"

When he had a moment to think about what he had said, he opened his mouth to clarify again, but Haruhi stopped him by speaking up quickly.

"Actually," she said, "I don't really have that feeling anymore. I did at first, but then I realized that what I was saying really did come from the heart. It's just that I said it in such a vague way that the girls in my class wouldn't suspect I was anything other than what they saw on the outside. So I wasn't actually being dishonest with my words, and I wasn't trying that hard to pass as a guy either. I just . . . let the chips fall where they may."

"All right. But given that, how do you find the gumption to carry on a conversation with them, knowing what pretext they're coming to you with?"

"What's this about, Sempai?"

Nekozawa let out a sigh and closed his eyes before answering her. "I just don't know if I have what it takes to be a host," he admitted. "I don't think I can flatter girls and keep them entertained like Suou can. I can hardly make my little sister happy, let alone someone who's nearly a complete stranger. My vocabulary is completely different from his, I can't come up with magnificent things to say on the fly, let alone talk about the sorts of things girls are interested in if Kirimi's comics are any even remote indication of what they want. I'm not that graceful, or witty—"

"I think you're pretty witty, Sempai."

Nekozawa stared at her with eyes wide. "You do? You're just saying that."

"No, I'm not." Haruhi shook her head. "Whenever you pop in on our club meetings and tease Tamaki you always have something funny to say. It's almost like you two have a routine rehearsed the way it comes out."

For a moment it looked as though Nekozawa believed her; but his smile fell almost as soon as it had begun to form. "But you don't understand. Those times I have my cloak and Beelzenev with me. They are what make me feel invincible. Why, just the thought of being with so many people in one space—being the host of so many people, the one they're going to turn to to keep them entertained, and blame when things don't go right—the pressure of it is just too much to handle.

"I'm telling you honestly, Haruhi," he said to her eyes, "I don't know if I can do this."

"Do you think any of us are certain that we can do it?"

"Well, Suou always looks so confident in his element. And girls—they're more intuitive than us. Like how they say animals can sense your fear. They're going to see how uncomfortable I am with the whole thing and the evening will be ruined."

Maybe the first place to start would be a lesson in tact, like not equating girls with a pack of dogs, Haruhi thought in passing; but this wasn't the place to make a sarcastic observation like that. Not while Nekozawa's self-confidence was already suffering.

"Did it ever occur to you," she said instead, "that maybe Tamaki is just acting as well?"

Nekozawa just stared at her. She let out a small sigh.

"Maybe you don't realize it, but you're like a completely different person yourself when you're the black magic club president. Suave and mysterious with a dark sense of humor—that's a good half of what everyone is coming to see. This is going to be _your_ party, and you better not forget it. You _will_ be in your element. If you're nervous about being a host, then forget it! Just concentrate on being what you already know how to be: President Nekozawa Umehito, master of the dark arts. Everything you need to make tomorrow night a success is already there inside you."

"And Renge?"

Of course, Haruhi thought. There were benefits to having someone as devoted to the club as she was, but her passion could be a double-edged sword at times. Like now. Haruhi smiled. "She really does mean well, but sometimes you just have to humor her and not take everything she says so seriously."

"I see. . . ."

"What really matters is that you show everyone how much your club means to you, right? When they see that, of course they'll give you and your club some serious thought. But one thing is for sure: if the host of the party can't enjoy it, no one else can."

The smile slowly returned to Nekozawa's lips as he tucked a lock of fine, blond hair behind his ear and digested her words. "You know," he said when he looked back up at her, "you're absolutely right. I'd almost forgotten that the reason I was doing all this in the first place was because I don't want to lose this club without a fight. And maybe that's selfish of me—"

"It's as good a reason as any," Haruhi said brightly, encouraged and relieved by his words. "And I know Tamaki would agree."

Nekozawa grimaced. "Well, I guess if he is the president of the most popular club in the school he must be onto _something_."

"Then you feel like you might be able to pull this off?"

"I'm still terrified, but I'm going to go through with it anyway. As they say, nothing can ever happen if you don't swing the bat, right?" And so saying, he bent his head and tugged on his wig, tucking his blond hair up underneath and smoothing the black locks down into place.

Haruhi grinned as she reached up to untangle a patch of hair sticking up that his hands had missed.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get back before your club starts thinking you jumped ship."

Nekozawa, who had gone still with surprise under that pat on the head, could only nod and follow wordlessly.

—o—

"Mock king," Tamaki was saying slowly in the third music room, turning the words over in his mouth as though they were from some alien language. Suddenly, he grinned cockily and ran a hand through his hair. "Why in the world would you want to elect a mock king when you already have me?"

"Well, isn't that the whole point?" said Fukazaki. "During Twelfth Night at the time of the winter solstice, all the rules are turned upside down and thrown out the window, and society succumbs temporarily to the forces of chaos and anarchy. Masters serve their slaves, women dress up as men and men as women, and the poor eat like the richest bastards in the land!" At each point he made, Tamaki reeled as though it were a needle being driven into some distant voodoo doll of pleasure, so that when one of the other boys said, "That's why there has to be a false king to rule over everything, a Lord of Disrule," he looked positively in the throws of ecstasy.

"How right you are!" Tamaki exclaimed. "If there's one thing everyone can agree on about anarchism it's its impeccable organization. A false king is a splendid idea."

"You do realize that means you can't be it," the twins told him.

But that didn't seem to faze their king. "It's like a raffle that everyone in attendance can get in on—"

"They only need a bean!" Minagi supplied helpfully.

"And even the nerdiest boy in school with the lowest social prospects can be king for an evening—"

"We're back," Haruhi announced appropriately enough just then as she and Nekozawa walked through the door.

Tamaki's eyes grew bigger and bigger. "Haruhi, what a coincidence! We were just talking about—"

A sharp slap on the back of the head with Kyouya's notebook cut him off. "Oops, butterfingers," said the host club vice president rather unapologetically.

"You all better not have had too much fun without us," Nekozawa said, his devilish grin returning.

As Renge and the rest of the black magic club predictably turned to him and Haruhi and demanded to know what they had been up to (and couldn't their club president stand up to Renge, because this torture really wasn't necessary and surely constituted a breach of the Geneva Convention), the matter of the bean ballot was quickly forgotten.

But the twins, with gothic rock pounding in their ears, turned knowingly to one another. "Were you listening to that business about a mock king?" Kaoru asked his brother.

"I sure was," said Hikaru. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"No. What are you thinking?" Kyouya said, sliding sideways into their conversation, pen at the ready.

"Nothing. Never mind," the twins chimed with grins even more devilish than Nekozawa's that said that, whatever it was, "nothing" it most definitely was not.

* * *

Three Hours To The Opening Of The Doors

* * *

"Where is he?" Tamaki huffed and puffed as he paced back and forth in front of the doors to the main ballroom the next afternoon, checking his watch every couple seconds. "This is extremely irresponsible. Doesn't he know we have a schedule to stick to?"

Just when Haruhi started to worry that maybe Nekozawa's cold feet were not so easily dealt with, the door cracked open and Nekozawa's face appeared as always through the darkness. "Good. . . . So, you're all here," he noted in a silky voice as he looked around at the eight members of the host club, half of them with dry cleaning bags in hand.

Tamaki started—for only a second. "Of course. We came to get ready for the party, and the caterers need a place to set up."

He gestured to the team in white waiting behind Honey, carts at the ready like racers at the starting line.

"Well, it's about time."

"I assume the ballroom is all set to welcome our guests?"

Perhaps Tamaki didn't expect the answer he got, because Nekozawa just chuckled ominously at that. "Of course it is. We were just waiting for you. I think you'll find the place much exceeds your expectations. But enough of this small talk. Please, come in." And with that Nekozawa pushed the door open wider and beckoned invitingly for them all to enter.

His anxiety the day before seemed to have all but vanished entirely as far as Haruhi could see, but perhaps it was only that her upperclassman had become as fully immersed in his dark character as ever before.

And the ballroom, once they had stepped inside, did not disappoint—if by disappointment one would mean to see something fall short of expectations. As it was, the transformation of the main ballroom's clean, white, Neoclassical lines into a shadowy palace that could have come out of a dozen or more of the darkest Gothic novels quite exceeded anything Tamaki and the host club had thought within the black magic club's power to pull together on such short notice.

The electric chandeliers and wall sconces had been dimmed down to their lowest setting short of being turned off, and the antique candelabras Nekozawa had promised—their numbers no doubt in the triple digits—lit the huge space with a warm, gently flickering light. The vague shapes of anthropomorphic Egyptian and Babylonian gods, stone gargoyles with protruding tongues, and bronze demons with bulging eyes and curved canines surveyed the empty ballroom lustily; black drapery and blood-red standards billowed from the ceiling and flowed down the sides of the room like moving columns of dark water; and along the side whose French doors opened up to the outside, glowing white dead tree trunks stood in an imitation winter forest that doubled as a light source.

"It's right out of _Final Fantasy Seven: Advent Children_!" Renge said ecstatically of the latter.

"Looks like frosted Plexiglas," Kyouya said, tapping one of them with a fingernail. "I wonder how much this set you back."

"Cost was little concern to us," Nekozawa told him with a wave. "To tell the truth, most of what you see came from our families' various collections. Case in point, I present to you . . . the altar."

With a sweeping gesture, he drew their attention to the mezzanine of the staircase at the front of the room, where a carpet the color of dried blood led up to a grandly-carved stone slab behind which stood a huge jewel-encrusted Byzantine cross, and above that a post and lintel structure surmounted by a shining, winged sun disk.

It was an amalgamation bordering on the obscene. "Are you sure you didn't forget anything?" Haruhi muttered.

Her sarcasm was completely wasted on Nekozawa. "Don't be silly," he said with uncharacteristic exuberance. "We didn't forget our generous friends, the host club. For your Christmas celebration you will notice we've strung dried pomegranates for long life, and provided an abundance of apples and oranges and persimmons from our cellars to represent fertility in the coming year and prosperity until spring. We have not forgotten the thinly-veiled pagan rites claimed by Christendom and commercialism alike; all manner of symbolically significant plants are accounted for. We even have three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree (all stuffed, of course). . . ."

"Where do you want the food?" Honey asked as the caterers began wheeling in banquet tables and metals carts laden with silver dishes behind him.

"You may place it over there in front of Moloch."

The host club looked in the direction in which Nekozawa had pointed, to a giant and grotesque bronze head that towered halfway to the ceiling with a foul-looking gaping jaw, deep inside of which a roaring fire seemed to be burning in bellows somewhere under the ballroom floor. The fire even seemed to reach its glowing red eyes, and a hidden fog machine rolled out a steady stream of mist from between its great, grasping hands. How the black magic club had managed to fit the huge bronze monstrosity through the doors of the ballroom, let alone what system they had put in place in what little time had been available to them to set up the fireworks, was beyond Haruhi, whose mouth was hanging open almost as wide as the Moloch statue's. Not that it should have come to any surprise at all, though. This was the same school whose students (and their connections) had made a to-scale replica of a portion of Venice, canals and all—_as seen at sunset_ no less—inside a gymnasium.

"Does Kirimi know you plan to sacrifice her later?" said an incredulous Tamaki.

"She is not pure enough in mind for a sacrifice," Nekozawa said in perfect, ominous serious that made both Tamaki and Haruhi feel suddenly uneasy.

The three black magic club boys tried to sneak by the group but it was to no avail. They jumped and went stalk stiff at Renge's sudden, "You there!"—as if, like a tyrannosaurus, she wouldn't see them if they didn't move.

The next second she was at their sides. "I have something for you three."

"Wh-what is it?" Minagi said as all three gave her the most downtrodden looks one could imagine.

To which Renge simply thrust dry cleaning bags into each of their hands. "Your costumes for this evening," she elaborated. "Each one custom-tailored to your own unique personality." Meaning, of course, the personalities she had picked out for them. "I sure hope you three have got your motivations down pat. We wouldn't want anyone to commit social suicide out there, eh, Minage?"

"It's Minagi," the third-year gritted, but Renge's ear-splitting whistle cut him off.

"Xavier!" she called. "Can you come here please? I have a special present just for you, Mr Torihada—"

"Goose pimples! Goose pimples!" Honey shouted as he randomly bounced by.

The second-year boy looked mortified. "That's Tori_hara_—"

"Whatever," Renge said as the man she called for joined them, his arms full of three gigantic, raucous crows.

The second-year's hopes sank even lower. "Wait a minute. . . . You can't be serious!"

"I am absolutely serious," said Renge as she proceeded to place the crows one by one on him. "These crows will be the perfect accessory for your character tonight. Ooh, girls just _adore_ a man who has a way with animals."

"But I don't even like animals!" yelled a petrified Torihara, looking more and more like an ineffective scarecrow. "In fact they scare the living crap out of me!"

"Why didn't you say something before?"

"I _tried_ to say something before! I've been trying to say that all along, but you never let me!"

"Well, it's too late to start complaining now," she said. "I've already paid for them. Besides, look how quickly they've taken to you."

Which anyone with eyes could have seen was most definitely not true as the crows just sat on the poor second-year's shoulders and cawed back and forth at one another as though in the midst of a heated debate, indifferent to his abject suffering.

Seeing his club mates resigned to their fates and not wanting to risk the same for himself, the first-year boy tried to sneak away, and for the large part succeeded until—

"Pst, Fukazake."

He spun around. "It's Fukazaki."

"Whatever," the twins said disinterestedly as they swung from either sides of the skirt of a lion-headed goddess like some Egyptian Remus and Romulus. "Listen, lil' drinker," Hikaru whispered, "we have a proposition for you-nya."

That piqued the other's interest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," purred Kaoru, "about fixing a little something you like to call a . . . bean ballot-nya?"

"It was just a thought," said his brother, "but we were thinking that it might be bonanza for your club if a certain someone were to be crowned Lord of Disrule for the evening."

The twins did not have to say who, as their line of sight was drawn to none other than Nekozawa himself—who, without warning, at that very moment tripped over the hem of his cloak, stepping right onto a banana peel that came from god knows where, on which naturally he slipped and performed a rather inelegant pratfall. Which wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't come out of it with the gingerliness of a brittle old man.

The twins winced. "He needs all the help he can get."

"And what, may I ask, are you three looking so cozy over here for?"

Hikaru and Kaoru quickly kicked Fukazaki out of the way as Kyouya poked his nose and handy-dandy notebook once again into their business. "Oh, just adding a few last minute touches," they chimed in innocent unison. "Garland here, rickrack there, and a couple of sprigs of yaupon," they sang as they suddenly produced little bundles of winter foliage that they began to hang indiscriminately, "that's how we like to deck the halls in the merry ol' land of Ouran."

They were up to something, but that didn't strike Kyouya as anything particularly new.

—o—

An edgy excitement was thick in the air when the clock in the tower struck eight o'clock on that much anticipated and equally dreaded Friday night.

The guests were gathered outside the ballroom awaiting the opening of the doors, some in their holiday finest, others taking up the black magic theme like a personal challenge and coming in the darkest, most Gothic designs they could find. All were equally on pins and needles, if the nervous whispers that filled the hall were any indication. Male and female students alike had to agree that waiting (and not knowing) was the hardest part—like the anticipation that frightens first-timers most at a haunted house.

Then the ballroom doors cracked open with a loud groan. Everyone went silent and turned toward it; but they could see nothing through the crack but a dark room.

As they waited on bated breath, preparing themselves for the worst, the doors swung inward and open; and as they did, the guests saw a ballroom straight out of an ancient palace, with dim candlelight flickering warmly on every surface, from the evilly sparkling jeweled eyes of statues, to the crystal glasses next to the punch bowls and the rich, glistening array of food.

It made Tamaki and Nekozawa positively sparkle as they beckoned their guests inside to a theme from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite": the former in the formal military garb of some unknown European country of some undisclosed time, the latter in the robes of an umpteenth-century czar (with Beelzenev poking his head in around the door), and both with smiles as radiant as their shining brocades and sweeping arm gestures that sought to out-do one another in magnanimity. Like first rays of the rising sun banishing the last traces of night, at that familiar sight the guests' apprehensions melted away, replaced by sighs of wonder and delight.

"Welcome, one and all," the two hosts said in unison, along with the chorus of their respective clubs in their respective places, "to our Christmas Saturnalia."

* * *

_One more chocolate in the advent calendar down. . . ._

* * *

_A/n: OK, I angsted over this for about a day and decided I'd give the black magic club members names after all. But you know me, I can't just give them ordinary names, no sir, they had to be puns. I am such an incorrigible geek that way. So since it doesn't work as well in English, I'll just spell it out here (or, if you have a Japanese dictionary handy, you can look them up for yourself). _Minagi_ is a pun on "minage," which is suicide by throwing oneself off a cliff; _Torihara_ becomes "torihada" (goosepimples); and _Fukazaki_ comes from "fukazake" which is a drunkard. His isn't as appropriate, but it kind of sounds like "fuzakeru" which is to flirt or fool around, so . . ._


	4. The Anti King Of The Winter Carnival

_A/n: Readers who have been following this will notice some changes to the black magic club's roster. Kamigamo Tsubaki (the "mermaid princess" of anime episode 6) has been changed to Kanazuki Reiko, the black magic club's one female member in the manga who bears the same character design. Please see my revised note at the beginning of chapter 2 for more details._

* * *

Welcome To The Christmas Saturnalia

* * *

As with all events the host club hosted, the guests to the ball spent about two minutes ooh-ing and ah-ing at the scenery before losing themselves in dance or conversation, under the attentive gazes of one of the clubs' members.

Tamaki could not stop waxing poetic on the darkly romantic (or was that romantically dark?) setting as though it had been his idea from the start, as he made the rounds, making sure everyone was comfortable and enjoying his or herself, with Nekozawa and Kyouya—the latter with the polite efficiency others had come to expect, and the former with ominous double entendres that left cheeks rosy and spines shivering. It was not long before Honey and Mori, like life-sized toy soldiers in their ubiquitous military formals, got the ball rolling with a polka, which encouraged guests who had come with dates to drag them to the dance floor; and Kanazuki and Fukazaki, like deceptively chaste pilgrims in their black velvet and frilly white lace collars and sleeves, cajoled wallflowers into joining in.

Nor were their other clubmates fairing any poorer. Minagi soon had himself a crowd of both sexes, some gathered there for conversation and others, it soon became obvious, for an opportunity to fawn, the difference between the two being not so easy to delineate.

"So, you're a fan of Shakespeare?" one of the girls asked, case in point. "Which play is your favorite? _Hamlet_? _Othello_?"

"_Twelfth Night_, actually," he said with a cool smile, "though if it's tragedy you want, I do have a soft spot for _Titus Andronicus_." In his Victorian frock coat and cloak that conjured images of a young bohemian slipping about the dark, wet-cobblestoned underbelly of London, searching for the elusive Green Fairy, or perhaps the Supreme Anarchist Council of Europe, the choice should have come as no surprise when he explained: "I find myself drawn to the raw pathos of a character like Titus who suffers such a tragic reversal of fortunes. That and nothing makes such a powerful statement of revenge as feeding your nemesis their own children in a pastry."

"How horrible!" the girls sighed, taking his story with more enthusiasm than young women of their upbringings perhaps should. "I never knew Shakespeare was so morbid!"

"But _Romeo and Juliet_ is so romantic."

"_Romeo and Juliet_ is an exercise in dramatic irony no different from _Love Suicide at Sonezaki_," Minagi said. "It's the young lovers' struggle with obligation and desire, the understanding that they can't have both, and the transient nature of their passion that strike the most poignant, and universal, chord." To which the boys in his circle nodded vigorously in agreement. "Speaking of romance, are any of you familiar with 'The Raven'?"

"No more!" Torihara wailed in English at that moment as he tried to shake one of the crows off his arm—much to the delight of his onlookers, who seemed to be mistaking his real distress for a stunt put on for their enjoyment.

Unfortunately for him, his clubmate was even more oblivious to his plight.

"Precisely, Torihara!" Minagi exclaimed. "I believe the exact word you're looking for is 'nevermore,' but that's close!"

"No, I really mean it." The second-year boy's cheeks reddened in frustration. He looked like any number of visual rockers in the costume Renge had chosen for him, a tight-fitting, pitch-black ensemble with rips and wear, and buckles here and there that served no purpose other than the aesthetic. And providing something for the crows to pick at, much to his chagrin. "The claws are tearing me apart," he winced, scrunching the shoulder one of them perched on in pain. "I know they're trained and all, but I really don't think they're used to being around this many people."

Which only made his fans squeal like hot kettles. "It's too cute! He's so sensitive, worried about his crows like they were his children!"

"And how he knows what they're feeling—it's uncanny, it gives me goosebumps! . . . Eh, no pun intended."

"I-I think you misunderstand. . . ." Torihara said in a weak voice, but no one heard him.

Fukazaki, on the other hand, would not have terribly minded trading places with his upperclassmen at that moment. Large, live birds he could handle; but running into the Hitachiin brothers at every turn was another story. For just when he thought he had finally gotten away from them, he turned around and nearly had a stroke.

"Come play with us, Fukazaki," they said in stereo, and he swore for a split second his soul actually left his body.

"_Shining_ twins . . . !"

He turned to flee as casually as he had come but they grabbed him by both arms and drew him aside.

"Where are you going?" Hikaru sounded innocent but the other boy wasn't buying. "You're just the man we want to see, Fuzake."

"_Fukazaki._"

"Whatever. This is very important," said Kaoru, "so listen close. We got a peek of the secret list of what flavor jelly beans were assigned to whom for the mock king election. At ten o'clock, our lord is going to choose a bean at random, and the person whose name corresponds to that flavor will be crowned Lord of Disrule for the rest of the evening."

"You want to rig this election in your club's favor as much as we do, right? Well, we made up a special batch of just Nekozawa-sempai's flavor—"

"Very tedious work."

"—which you're going to switch with the official cup of the regular, mixed beans ever-so-covertly at the last minute. That way there's no way he can lose."

"It's really simple," said Kaoru. "All you have to remember is that the unscreened beans are in the stein with the pine. The tankard with the anchor contains the mix that's been fixed."

"Really simple," Hikaru nodded.

But Fukazaki's stony face told a different story. "Hold on. The mix that's been fixed is in the stein with the—"

"No," said the twins. "The stein with the pine holds the unscreened beans. The mix that's been fixed is in the tankard with the anchor! Now get on it, champ." And with that they sent him on his way muttering the rhyme to himself over and over—or at least trying to.

Needless to say, the whole thing looked mighty suspicious to Haruhi, who said as she joined them, "Great. Who are you torturing this time?"

"You know us too well for your own good."

As if that were an answer. What Haruhi had not known was what they would make their appearances at the ball looking like. "What are those things hanging off your faces?"

Hikaru and Kaoru only seemed to have their vanity invigorated by her lack of enthusiasm. "Slave chains," Kaoru said, tugging at the silver chain that ran from the ring in his right ear to one in his lip. "Haven't you read _NANA_?"

"They're fake, of course," said Hikaru, who pulled off the ring in his left ear momentarily to demonstrate. "Why? You don't like?"

"Well, it's not very flattering. . . ."

"Jeez, Haruhi," they said, pulling her to their breasts in pity, "where's your sense of fun?"

"You don't have to be a square on Twelfth Night too."

"You should let loose," a voice sang from behind them, "eat, drink, and be merry! Do what no one ever expected you to do!" Her shining eyes drifting closed, Renge put a hand elegantly to her breast in pride. "Take the black magic club. Usually the dregs of student programming, but, ah, tonight all so elegant, so in-character! Thank goodness for my wonderful casting sense."

Hearing Renge's dreamy tone of voice, Haruhi forgot her momentary irritation with the twins. Now that she thought about it, all those worries they had had over the past week—well, more accurately, Tamaki's initial reluctance to work with a club that practiced black magic and Renge's fear of failure—had all been forgotten since the start of the ball. The black magic club's members may have been going by their own scripts, but it was their own personalities that drew the interest of fans of the host club and newcomers alike.

A passion-filled quote by Minagi, or an intimate whisper from Torihara amid the flutter of wings; an impromptu juggling act from Fukazaki, or a palm reading by Kanazuki—they were a midway circus in and of themselves, and Nekozawa their ringmaster, who had everyone in attendance under his spell. The mojo mobiles that hung from dead tree branches, and the fiery behemoth that was the Moloch guarding the buffet tables, rather than turning students used to more elegant trappings off, aroused in them a good-spirited fascination that might be forgotten at the end of the holiday, but at least for the time being created an atmosphere that was truly magical.

"Good evening, Milady Manager," the twins said in unison as they turned with a mirrored bow.

"Good evening, my dear fellow hosts," Renge replied with the slightest of curtsies. When her classmates didn't know quite to say next, she prompted, "Well? What do you think?"

She was, of course, referring to her outfit: a blood-red, sixteenth-century gown with billowing sleeves and a billowing skirt, and a tight bodice that was extremely low-cut and pushed everything up, even if there wasn't much to push up to begin with. A beaded, scalloped tiara covered her crown and tightly bound-up hair, a collar to match standing up around her neck; her make-up was dark and mysterious; and a large crucifix like some kind of chastity amulet swung against her stomach. A hollow ring of the type used by Hollywood villains to poison drinks completed the ensemble. "Are you supposed to be someone?" Haruhi ventured a guess.

Renge nodded vigorously. "How good of you to notice! To celebrate the theme of nefarious goings-on, I decided to cosplay tonight as the Machiavellian villainess Lucrezia Borgia—as played by Estelle Taylor in the silent film version of _Don Juan_, not the Victor Hugo version—"

"That's an unusually obscure reference."

"I thought Ms Taylor's more occult interpretation would better evoke the mood of the event."

"It evokes something, all right," the twins said, whose eyes never quite made it as far north as her face.

Which earned them both a quick tug on the slave chain from Haruhi. "Well, it certainly does fit the mood." She smiled perhaps a little too brightly. "You look lovely, Renge."

Which naturally made the other girl beam. "Why, thank you, Haruhi."

"Looks like our class rep finally worked up the guts," Kaoru said, and the other three turned in the direction he was looking.

Souga, their class representative, and his vice in more ways than one, Kurakano Momoka, who had her hand on his elbow, were approaching them through the crowd. "Wow, Souga," Haruhi said, "I'm glad to see you here." Surprised was the word that really came to mind. "Are you two enjoying yourselves so far?"

"Yes!" Renge gestured around them with dramatic flourish. "You must tell us what you think of the aura!"

"Well," Souga began, "you know this kind of . . . dark, creepy thing isn't my usual cup of tea . . ."

"But I convinced him he had to come along to _one_ of the host club's events," said Kurakano, "and since this is the last one of the calendar year—"

"I couldn't say no. It's not half as bad as I was expecting, either." By the blush beneath his glasses, however, Haruhi and the twins were not so sure the ballroom's decorations were really responsible in any way for Souga's mood one way or another.

"Then I hope you have a wonderful time."

"And don't incur any bad mojo before the new year," the twins said after the couple in their most ominous of voices, unable to resist the temptation.

Haruhi sighed.

"What?"

"You two always have to do that, don't you?"

"Of course," they said. "We're mischievous twin characters. That's what we do. That's our thing. Right, Renge?"

"Absolutely. And we," said Renge, "should be mingling. Haruhi, may I have the next dance?"

"What does that have to do with mingling?" Hikaru said, which was actually the question on Haruhi's mind as well, as Renge linked arms with her.

"Everything!" was the ambiguous response; and Haruhi could only manage a forlorn look back at the twins as they sent her off to the dance floor with a wave and an all-too-chipper for her liking, "_Bon voyage_."

"Hikaru? Kaoru?"

"So there you two are! We've been looking for you all evening."

Recognizing the voices of their usual customers at club meetings, the twins slipped easily into their shtick, turning to face their fans with mirrored accuracy as they chimed, "You know how we like to make an entrance."

Their fans sighed their pleasure as they were allowed their first look at the twins in costume that evening. Matching charcoal and steel gray Little Lord Fauntleroy suits tailored to fit their adolescent frames, complete with ribbon neckties and knickers and long stockings, made them look like living dolls, or like characters who had literally wandered out of an old black-and-white movie. On their heads they wore flat caps like those from their "Which one is Hikaru?" game; around their necks, tattered wool scarves; and on their feet, to put punk brackets around an old Twist, platform loafers.

"For your pleasure, EGL Tiny Tim twins," they said together, though aside from the up-to-no-good glimmer in their eyes as they both bowed there was little about them that could be considered Dickensian.

"Ee-gee-ell?" asked one girl.

"Elegant Gothic Lolita," another told her like she should be ashamed for her ignorance. "I've read about this but never seen it done in person."

"In stereo, no less. Magnificent!"

"No one is immune to the homoerotic appeal of EGL twins," Hikaru and Kaoru said, and no one was about to contest them on that.

"But if you're Tiny Tims," said one girl, "where are your crutches?"

"Crutch?" Kaoru blinked. "Why, I don't need a crutch as long as I've Hikaru to lean on—"

Before he could finish, he was pulled into his brother's arms, staring up at Hikaru as he murmured, "Silly. . . . It's _you_ who is my crutch, Kaoru. I don't care if the world laughs at me for being childish, as long as I have you beside me to hold me up, I can surely go on living." And he punctuated the emotion with a weak cough into his fist.

"Hang in there, Hikaru . . ." Kaoru said sympathetically.

Then they proceeded to stare soulfully into each other's eyes, so that they didn't realize the squeals of delight that followed had less to do with their trademark brotherly love act this time, and more to do with where they happened to be standing, until someone in their audience exclaimed, "God bless us everyone! Could our luck get any better?"

The twins turned to them, then slowly followed their gazes up. Their faces fell as they saw too late what had drawn everyone's attention. "Is that what I think it is, dear brother?" said Hikaru.

"I'm afraid so," said Kaoru.

"And what imbecile put that there of all places, I wonder?"

"I think that was us, dear brother."

"Fantastic. . . ."

"_Mistletoe!_" their fans squealed, shaking their heads in pure and utter rapture. "You know what this means!"

Yes, Hikaru and Kaoru knew exactly what that meant, but they pled the fifth.

"Well, you two _have_ to kiss now," someone in the crowd said, followed by another shouting, "I mean, you just _do_! It's mistletoe, for chrissakes!"

"Kiss, kiss, kiss!" the crowd of well-to-do high school girls took up the chant like a bunch of grade schoolers.

It didn't help their cases any that the twins were still stuck in their crutch-dialog poses, caught that way like deer in headlights when they first glanced up at the dreaded mistletoe that hung over their heads like the proverbial sword. Hikaru swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. "What do we do now?"

"Do?" Kaoru said. "I think we have to give them what they want."

"Are you insane?"

"If you see a better way out of this, you're welcome to jump in at any time." Maybe Kaoru was crazy. The prospect of kissing his twin didn't particularly bother him in and of itself, but he knew as well as Hikaru did that what their audience wanted was a step they might not be as willing to take as they believed. Imagining the Hitachiin twins in a lip lock was one matter, but seeing the real thing. . . . It was something their fans might not ever forgive them for.

Then again—

"Aw, screw it," Kaoru muttered, before he grabbed a fistful of Hikaru's jacket and pulled his brother to him, planting his mouth firmly on Hikaru's. The fake lip rings clicked against each other so Kaoru tilted his head, thereby deepening the kiss at the same time—which Hikaru, wide-eyed and frozen on the spot, was entirely too conscious of. They just prayed they didn't come to regret the slave chain idea and get stuck together; that would be an insult to this injury they could do without, thank you very much.

At first, a deathly silence was all they received from the crowd. The girls were too shocked that they had actually done it to even breathe. For all of three seconds. Then they caught their breaths and were screaming in bliss, begging for more, swooning on their feet, all with one consensus: that was the best, the paramount, the ultimate winter vacation send-off in the history of the host club. And now, thanks to Kaoru, they had something new to champion: "Role reversal!"

Ever the showman, Kaoru blushed as he pulled away, and covered his mouth. "Forgive me, Hikaru. I guess I just got so overwhelmed imagining you sickly and lame, that I wanted to take care of the Hikaru of this moment with everything I had."

"Take care of" was not the phrase Hikaru would have used, he thought as he tried to repress an involuntary eye twitch. "But still, Kaoru, you're never so aggressive when it's just the two of us."

Which, of course, started a new refrain of screamed adulation and imaginations set free into the forbidden wilds of brotherly love. That was the last time, the two swore to themselves, they ever hung decorations without also having a map of said mine field on hand at all times.

On the other side of the room, Honey sighed an adorable sigh. "Phew, I'm pooped from all this dancing. Anyone wanna have some Christmas cake with me?"

As if they had been waiting all evening just for that, several of the girls agreed that they did.

"Kanazuki-chan, would you like some Christmas cake, too?" he invited his friend from the black magic club.

"If Haninozuka is offering so nicely, then I will have some," Kanazuki deadpanned. "After all, in this season we young women are reminded of all those uneaten cakes thrown out on December twenty-sixth, and should take care that we don't grow to become stale Christmas cakes ourselves."

Though Honey would have had to admit he had no idea what she was talking about, the other girls nodded solemnly to themselves at her warning. Now that she mentioned it, none of them wanted to become Christmas cakes, no sir, tossed aside as no good after their twenty-fifth year.

"That's why I carry a marriage charm on me at all times," Kanazuki went on as she withdrew a laminated paper charm from somewhere on her person. "Like this one we make and sell exclusively through the black magic club, along with juju fetishes and anything else you might need to bring good mojo upon you—or bad mojo upon someone else."

The charm between her fingers turned into a fan of them with a casual flick of her wrist, each with her club's mascot's image stamped into the corner. "You could waste money and time on traditional charms from shrines and temples that you have to meditate on, or wait for chance to intercede, or you can take our tried and true route. Each official Black Magic Club Anti-Christmas Cake Guaranteed Marriage by Twenty-Five Charm comes blessed by Beelzenev himself, so you know the spirits of darkness are working hard to bring _you_ the best marriage prospects."

That had several girls sold, and even a couple of boys. "Ohhh, I get it now," Honey said to himself as bills waved around him, and students clamored for one of those strips of paper.

"Hooo. . . ." Nekozawa slid into the fray, grinning wide as he placed a hand on Kanazuki's shoulder. "Now, that is how it is done. I commend you on your astute salesmanship, Kanazuki-kun. You make your club proud."

"It is nothing," she said in just as flat a manner as she had delivered her sales pitch. "I am merely taking advantage of the spiritual energies of the season. Everyone knows that when the forces of light ruled by the sun are in their weakest phase at the end of December, those that reside in the darkness are ripe for the picking, eager to put the hurt on whomever they are commanded. It is the perfect season for curses. I myself have cast seven in the past week and expect at least that many more before the night is through."

"I've got to hand it to you, Nekozawa-sempai." Tamaki slapped him on the shoulder as he joined the group, an oblivious smile lighting up his face. "I never thought I'd say it, but your club does know how to throw a party."

His presence put a wicked gleam in Kanazuki's eyes. "And speaking of people I'd like to curse—"

"Yes," Nekozawa spoke over her, "we do always have a sinfully good time wherever and whenever our little coven gathers. It's just been our misfortune in the past that no one else has deigned to share in our revelries."

"But thanks to the host club," Tamaki said predictably, with a hand to the breast, "your fortunes have reversed for the better."

"That and the chicken blood over the lintel," Kanazuki muttered.

Tamaki blinked. "What? I didn't quite catch that."

"It's nothing." That wicked grin of Nekozawa's quelled all worries—by supplanting them with new ones. "How are your regular guests enjoying the atmosphere."

"The same way they did our club's vampire-themed meeting." The host king matched his disingenuous grin. "Do not think you can lure them away from us with your parlor tricks, like some kind of Pied Piper. The moment you think you can try you are doomed, for then it will be on."

"What will?"

"You know. It."

"Then I look forward to its commencement."

Static electricity tingled in the air for a moment as the two stared each other down like gentlemen about to do battle in a duel.

Until Tamaki abruptly pulled out of it and Nekozawa almost fell forward on his face. "There's just one question I had," said the former. "I tried some of it and I just can't figure out what that fizzy, greenish stuff in the punchbowl beside the eggnog is."

"Oh, that?" said the other matter-of-factly, sweeping a lock of hair out of his face. "Absinthe."

Tamaki looked as though his upperclassman had just told him he had been poisoned and only he, Nekozawa, had the antidote. "Absinthe! You mean _la Fée Verte_? The Green Fairy? Are you insane? (Don't answer that; of course you are.) You can't serve absinthe at a school function! This is exactly the kind of reckless behavior that got your White Day bake sale shut down—"

"Relax, Suou-kun." Nekozawa seemed to enjoy saying that just a little too much. "The rumors of its effects are greatly exaggerated. And besides, it's diluted with enough ginger ale to kill a pancreas."

"That's beside the point—"

"Anyway, I should be asking _you_ how it got here. Not that I'm protesting, but we did agree _your_ club would be in charge of refreshments, did we not?"

Before Tamaki could come up with any sort of response, Kyouya appeared by his side with troubling news. "Komatsuzawa is here."

The mere mention of the president of the journalism club, who had tried to disgrace them and ended up disgracing himself, made Tamaki screw his face up and mutter, "That sneaky little . . . Who does he think he is, huh, coming in here trying to crash our good, clean fun? Kyouya, didn't you ban him from even coming near our club's activities? Didn't you threaten his family or something? He's probably come to dig up the dirt on us so he can accuse the host club of being comprised of devil worshipers or worse—"

"Any publicity," Nekozawa purred, "is good publicity as far as we are concerned."

"Yes," said Kyouya, "but you have a warped perspective of the world."

"This is true."

"Ah!" Tamaki started. "He's going to discover the absinthe! We're doomed—"

"Relax, Suou-kun," Nekozawa tried again, gripping one of the host king's shoulders—which, needless to say, did not appear to help.

"Let me see if I grasp the situation correctly," Kanazuki said to the two hosts. "You prohibited the president of the journalism club from participating in your club's events under threat of retaliation and he ignored you? This is a matter which calls for haste and . . ."

"Tact?" Kyouya supplied.

"_Delicacy_," said Kanazuki. "It would be my pleasure if you leave it to me."

Her gracious tone of voice and polite mannerisms belied none of the treachery that lay just beneath her exterior, but Tamaki and Kyouya caught something of it just the same, which made the former step back and the latter smile.

Nowhere near as much as Nekozawa, however, who was grinning ecstatically as he said with relish after her retreating form, his hand outstretched toward her: "Yes, my little voodoo doll, go—and do not spare him! Show him once and for all how we of the black magic club . . . _deal_ with renegers."

After which he chuckled evilly.

It did not take Kanazuki long to find Komatsuzawa of the since bust journalism club in the crowd, as he was perhaps the only one looking nervously back and forth across the ballroom to see if anyone had detected his presence. Either that, or he was committing to memory what sinister sights his eyes beheld there for committing to paper later. And he was the only one in attendance who was biting his thumbnail.

"Are you sure we should be here?" his right-hand man Ukyou was asking him in a low voice. "I mean, Ohtori did say—"

"I don't care what that puffed-up megalomaniac said," the other grumbled. "I will ruin the host club one way or another for what they did to me, and then Ohtori shall know— Sakyou," he chided his left-hand man, "you're supposed to be taking incriminating photos!"

"Komatsuzawa-sempai?"

The threesome came to a halt. Kanazuki stood before them, striking an image of girlish innocence with her hands clasped to her breast, her large and heavy dark eyes gazing soulfully up at him. Needless to say, Komatsuzawa's plan for using his club's popularity to, among other things, win girls had never exactly panned out, so he didn't know quite what to say at first other than, "Uh, uh, uh . . . yeah?"

Kanazuki looked coyly up at him from beneath her lashes. "I've made my decision, and you're the one I want."

Which made Komatsuzawa automatically look around himself. "Me?"

"Yes. I want you to be my fiftieth. And you can't say no. I _always_ get what I want—so help me Adramelch, Azazel and all the infernal legions!" Too late for Komatsuzawa, Kanazuki unfolded her hands, revealing a little straw doll that she clutched possessively between her fingers. "_Amon, miserere nobis . . . Samael, libera nos a bono_," she began to pray over the voodoo doll with all the incongruity of a heartfelt, lovesick confession, "_Belial eleison . . ._" She plucked a couple of hairs from Komatsuzawa's head, voice rising as she spoke to them cross-eyed with mounting passion: "_Focalor, in corruptionem meam intende . . . Haborym, damnamus dominum—_"

"_Eeyaaahhh!_" Komatsuzawa screamed like a girl and fled in the other direction. The whole exorcism had been but the work of a moment, leaving Sakyou and Ukyou standing stalk still in utter disbelief.

"Now, as for you two . . ."

That was all Kanazuki had to say before the two boys, muttering the first excuses they could think of for being elsewhere, stepped back and made a hasty retreat from the ballroom. If she regretted anything, it was only that curses fifty-one and fifty-two had gotten away before the fun could even begin. But no matter, as she saw her classmate Kasanoda wander like he was lost through the crowd, and almost get run over by a fleeing Ukyou.

He jumped when, turning back around, he nearly ran over Kanazuki. "Just my luck," he grumbled to himself.

"I could do something about that," said Kanazuki.

"No, I meant . . ." What he meant more or less was how unfortunate it was that he, human blizzard and most feared boy in the first-year class, should have run into the one person who gave _him_ the chills. As if it wasn't bad enough already that half his classmates had to see him dressed up like this. There was only one thing that could make it all worth it.

Kasanoda looked away as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Is Fujioka here? This is a host club event, ain't it?"

"Dance with me first and we'll see what we can do about your luck and Fujioka."

What could Kasanoda really do? Kanazuki's sudden grip on his arm was awfully insistent, and it wasn't as though the alternative—that is, turning down the black magic club's dreaded voodoo princess and dealing with the consequences—was very attractive. So, expression as sour and foreboding as ever, Kasanoda allowed himself to be dragged to the floor, all the while keeping an eye out for Haruhi's form.

Which wasn't too hard. His dreaded gaze parted the crowd like Moses could the Red Sea. It was only too bad for him that Haruhi was no longer on the dance floor or anywhere else in the ballroom. She had just gone back into the preparation room when he walked in the door.

—o—

The can of soda opened with a hiss and Hikaru sighed. He was working on his third Calpis and he could still feel the Kaoru germs in his mouth. "All I'm saying is, you didn't have to do that in front of everyone in the school," he grumbled.

"It wasn't _everyone_, Hikaru." Kaoru held his forehead. "And, like I said, I just didn't see another way out of it. _You_ could have jumped in at any time. And besides, you act like we've never done that before—"

"Tongue, Kaoru! I distinctly remember you slipping me the tongue. That was new! You mind explaining the meaning behind that?"

Kaoru turned beet red as he stammered, "That was an accident, I swear. And I was just having a little fun with the fangirls is all. How was I supposed to know they'd take it like they did? I thought they'd be disgusted and freak out."

"Seriously, what's wrong with those girls?" Hikaru's eye twitched.

"I grossly underestimated the depth of their depravity. . . . But the excitement can't last long."

"Jeez, you two," Haruhi said brightly as she strode into the back room, "I heard you were really going at it out there. You know, there's no rule that says you have to kiss someone on the mouth under the mistletoe."

"Great. Where were you with that information before?" Kaoru said.

While his brother tore at his hair. "'Can't last long', huh? Famous last words, Kaoru! I'm telling you, we're never going to live this down. They're like crack addicts: now that they've seen us making out they're going to demand a bigger and bigger high to satisfy their cravings. Where will it ever stop?"

"For the last time, Hikaru, we were not making out!"

"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" Minagi was yelling at his frock coat as he wandered into the room.

"Club soda, refrigerator door," Haruhi directed him, then shook her head at the twins. "Anyway, you two should just relax. You're making much too big a deal out of this."

"Huh?" How else were they supposed to take it?

"Really." As always, Haruhi could calm their nerves with a gentle smile and the right words, but the medicine was taking a little longer to work tonight. "It'll all blow over over the holiday, I'm sure. As long as nobody got a picture of the smooch itself. I mean, at worst you'll have to put up with Renge's disappointment over missing the whole thing. Not that I've got the faintest what the brouhaha is all about in the first place. . . ."

"Knowing Renge," the two grumbled conspiratorially to themselves, "she'll probably devise some covert operation to get us to reenact the whole thing. . . ."

Haruhi put her index finger to her bottom lip suddenly in thought, and looked toward the ceiling. "Speaking of Renge, have either of you seen her?"

The twins shrugged. "Not since we last saw her with you."

"Huh. That's odd," Haruhi said to herself as she ducked out of the room, presumably to find Renge, just as Fukazaki was ducking in. At the sight of him, Hikaru pushed the mistletoe embarrassment to a more rearward burner for the meantime as he exchanged a knowing look with Kaoru, and pushed himself off the table on which he had been sitting.

"Yo, Kemosabe," the two crowed when the other happened to innocently pass by them on the way to the cupboard.

Fukazaki bristled. He didn't even bother correcting them anymore. "What do you two want?"

"There's been a slight change of plans," Kaoru said with a shrug. "We broke the stein with the pine."

"You broke the stein with the pine?" the other echoed, mouth agape.

"So now the beans that aren't screened are in the tankard with the anchor."

"And the mix that's been fixed is in the stoup with the loop," Hikaru finished.

"Wait a second. . . ." Fukazaki was counting on his fingers (for some reason). "I thought the mix that's been fixed is in the tankard with the anchor—"

The twins shook their heads. "No, they're in the stoup with the loop."

"But what about the stein with the pine?"

"Butterfingers."

"It's really very easy to remember," said Honey, who happened to be listening in. "The mix that's been fixed was in the tankard with the anchor, but now it's in the stoup with the loop."

"And the tankard with the anchor is now the barrel for the ballot of the beans not screened," Mori added at his side, "which used to be the stein with the pine—"

"Until the brothers Hitachiin broke it to smithereens," they chimed gleefully.

"So now they're in the tankard with the anchor!" Honey finished, beaming.

Silence.

"So, which one do I want?" Fukazaki said after an awkward moment to the four hosts who were posing intelligently before him.

"_The stoup with the loop_," they all told him in unison.

Fukazaki heaved a great sigh and slumped his shoulders. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Of course you can," Kaoru said as he put an arm around one of the boy's shoulders, and Hikaru put his around the other. "Trust us, this is child's play. You are not a crook." And with that he flashed Fukazaki what was either a 'V' for victory or a very appropriate peace sign.

"The stoup with the loop, the stoup with the loop," Fukazaki repeated to himself under his breath as he walked away, with Hikaru and Kaoru shaking their heads as they watched him go.

Until Mori put a hand on the former's cap in passing. "Nice snog, by the way."

"_Kaoru!_"

"No, Hika-chan! Put down the Yard O' Beef!" Honey wailed on Hikaru's coattails.

"Lemme go, Honey-sempai! I'm gonna kill my brother!"

"But think of the be-he-heef!"

—o—

Renge, who wasn't in the habit of swearing, swore to herself now. Nor was she in the habit of hiding out in coat closets, but the stitching keeping the collar to her costume had come undone and she was having a devil of a time fixing it, what with having to reach behind her and not being able to see what she was doing. Taking the whole costume off was definitely not an option, and it seemed everything she did only made the collar situation worse.

"Ohhh, why did this have to happen now?" she moaned to herself. "Right when I'm dancing with Haruhi—"

She turned around and jumped. Nekozawa was staring at her with an abashed look on his face that must have equaled her own. And just how long had he been standing there, she wanted to know.

Her words came out a little colder than she had intended when she said, "Can I help you with something, Sempai?"

Nekozawa deflated—which struck Renge as being quite incongruous with the role he had just been playing on the ballroom floor. "Never mind me. I was just looking for a little bit of peace and quiet, but I'll get out of your way—"

"No, it's okay," Renge said quickly, flashing him a quick and probably less-than-sincere smile. But now she felt guilty for trying to turn him out. "I was just leaving anyway. . . ."

Naturally her collar chose that moment to fall down again. And, so much for nonchalance, she automatically reached up to grab it, blushing red as a beet. "Damn it. . . ."

"Let me take a look at it. Would you mind?"

Before Renge could protest, the Beelzenev puppet was placed into her hands and Nekozawa's were on her shoulders, turning her toward the light. She froze. Somehow the embarrassment she had felt at the idea of anyone, let alone someone she had treated so harshly in the past, seeing her in a moment of imperfection evaporated under the gentleness of his hands and gaze—a gentleness so unlike the creepy persona he wore in front of everyone else that it was difficult to believe this was the same person, rather than some decidedly not-evil evil twin.

A gentleness that reminded her of Miyabi in her favorite game, that was responsible for the way she felt about Haruhi now, and that she had once tried to graft onto Nekozawa in vain.

Because it must have been there all along. Why couldn't he have brought this to her attention earlier? she silently asked the doll in her hands. It would have saved all three of them a lot of trouble—not that she hadn't enjoyed the challenge in the first place. Only now she felt so foolish, with his breath tickling the back of her neck as he bent closer, so that the words forced themselves from Renge's mouth: "I-I'm not sure what happened. One moment it was fine and the next . . . I think a seam must have popped."

"Nothing a few safety pins won't fix. Here, tip your head forward." She could hear the smile in his tone of voice, as he pinched the fabric of the back of her dress between his fingers, working carefully so as not to poke her with the sharp end of the pins.

Renge blushed. "My savior. I'm glad you had some pins on you."

"I've learned to always carry some, just in case. But I thought someone as into cosplay as you are would come prepared for any situation."

Her eyelid twitched. So much for trying to be nice. . . .

At the kind smile he gave her when she turned back around, however, Renge couldn't hold on to her irritation. She fingered the back of her costume where the collar met the gown; whatever he had done, it felt stronger, more secure than before. "Good as new?" Nekozawa said.

"Or better. Thank you."

"Lucrezia Borgia, right? She's one of my favorite heroines."

Renge lowered her eyes. She wanted to shout that he was right, and how happy she was that he had guessed and that they had something in common, but she just _couldn't_ say _that_; so, feeling like she had to say something, she came up with: "I really like what your club did with the ballroom. You've all put a lot of effort into making the ball a success, haven't you?"

"Of course," he said. "We are serious about our club, you know. We realize it isn't all fun and games and curses; that might be why I founded it, but I'm too attached to what it's become to just let it go without a fight."

"I just hope I wasn't too controlling this past week."

"You were."

Renge suppressed a grimace. He wasn't supposed to answer truthfully when she was being so candid. . . .

"But you were just doing what has worked for the host club," Nekozawa continued; "and, all in all, even if we didn't take all of your advice to heart, I'd still say you were a big help. I still feel indebted to you, you know, for everything you did to help me overcome my fears for Kirimi's sake."

"Well, if it counts for anything," Renge said, feeling self-conscious about his last confession, "I do think you played the part of a mysterious prince-type character really handsomely tonight."

He grinned in amusement at that, and she returned it, if a bit awkwardly. When his smile dropped a moment later, however, and he leaned closer to her, that awkward feeling increased tenfold. Renge clasped the Beelzenev doll to her even tighter as Nekozawa lifted her chin in one hand and bent toward her. Her heart skipped a beat and she could feel herself blush. His face was little more than a hand's breadth from hers, his lips—

She didn't want to think about that! This was all too soon and unwarranted. She had merely complimented him on his performance as a host tonight, nothing more—no ulterior motive or meaning intended—although she did have to admit that he was attractive, and she did have a soft spot for sensitive, dark-haired characters. . . .

But still, she could not allow this to happen. Her heart already belonged to another and he was overstepping his bounds, which she intended to tell him forthwith—

"Eyelash," Nekozawa said, and plucked one from her cheek.

Renge nearly fainted. Thank God, a false alarm! But he still shouldn't scare her like that.

He held it out to her on his finger, smiling that same gentle smile. "Make a wish."

Instead, Renge pushed the hand puppet back into his arms with a huff. "Nice try," she said, turning haughtily away from him, "but if you think I'll fall for your charms you're barking up the wrong tree."

Nekozawa let out a confused chuckle. "I didn't—"

"You are a gentle, noble soul after all, but, because I care, I must tell you before you make a fool of yourself that my heart already belongs to Haruhi and there's nothing you can do to change that fact."

"Wait." The smile fell from Nekozawa's face, replaced by a look of confusion. "Did you just confess to me to liking Fujioka? Wow. . . ."

Renge spun. "What? I don't like your tone. What?"

"Well, it's just . . . I guess I never thought you might swing that way."

"Swing what way? Toward sincerity and kindness and a sense of chivalry? Do you have a problem with a young woman such as myself being attracted to a pure-hearted scholarship student, who knows precisely how to treat a woman?"

"Well, I suppose that would make some sense. And, no, I never said I had a problem." Nekozawa looked up at the ceiling; suddenly _he_ was the uncomfortable one. Maybe it was a gender thing, but if he had been in her situation, he wouldn't be _bragging_ about the nature of his love. "I hear this kind of crush is pretty common among adolescent girls," he said aloud to himself, "and it would explain why the host club allows itself to be managed by a woman. Forgive me, but you just never struck me as the type to . . . you know, bat for the other team."

"I'll have you know I am a very open-minded woman," Renge said as she put her hands on her hips. "And honestly, what's with you and the baseball metaphors? Isn't that a tad out-of-character?"

Nekozawa did have to admit this whole parley was giving him the strong impression that he might have been grossly misunderstood somewhere along the line. "Let me ask you this. Does Fujioka return your feelings?"

"Hard to tell," Renge said with a serious expression on her face. "I think Haruhi is more sensitive to the whole conflict of interest posed by being romantically involved with anyone in the club, and I admire that kind of ethic. My feelings can keep until after graduation, if that's what it takes; and if it was never meant to be after all, then at least I will have been able to dream for three years."

"That sounds fair to me," Nekozawa said. "Then may I offer by way of apology that should you ever feel you need a helping hand from a darker power, you have an ally in me." Though he was fairly sure from what he'd experienced—though he could be wrong on this one—that Fujioka Haruhi was not particularly into girls.

"Deal." As she shook one of Beelzenev's paws between her fingers, Renge's smile slowly returned. "But for the meantime, it seems to me we're even."

A long, awkward moment went by before the two realized they were still grinning and staring into each other's eyes. "We should probably leave here seperately, though," Renge said. "Just in case anyone—"

"Definitely."

—o—

As the last chimes of the bell in the clock tower marking ten o'clock finally died away, Tamaki took his place beside the altar on the mezzanine, cleared his throat, and called for attention.

"As your host club king," he began, "it is my pleasure tonight to oversee a black magic club holiday tradition: the random election of your mock king of the proceedings, your Lord of Disrule, via bean ballot! But first, I'd like to take a moment to reflect, on this chilly winter evening . . ."

Fukazaki breathed a sigh of relief. If Tamaki went on at all the way past experience indicated, he would have plenty of time in which to switch the steins that held the beans and fix the election in President Nekozawa's favor. He had even finally memorized the rhyme that was supposed to help him, so he could say with confidence he was supposed to switch the tankard with the anchor for the stoup with the loop. So far so good.

There was only one hurdle to go. Somehow he had to accomplish all that under the omniscient eyes of Ohtori Kyouya, who was watching the cup that sat on the altar stone like a statue. Or perhaps more appropriately, a cold plastic security camera with a blinking red light. Whichever it was, Fukazaki prayed to whatever dark powers he could think of for intervention—and they sent the Hitachiin twins.

"Kyouya-sempai," the two whined together, tugging on one of his sleeves as Tamaki's monologue rolled on without a skip. "Can we talk to you?"

"It'll just take a second. . . ."

The Ohtori-cam turned! Now was his chance!

Fukazaki thanked the twins silently as he crawled quickly from hiding place to hiding place; and like Indiana Jones only faster, he was able to exchange the steins right under the host king's nose without a hitch—just as his speech was wrapping up.

"And now," Tamaki said, holding the stoup obliviously aloft, "I will randomly choose a bean from out of this cup!"

He flipped open the lid, reached in with his other hand, and announced—

No, first he stared sideways at the bean and scrutinized it, and finally consulted a chart with pictures before he announced: "Popcorn! I think . . . Yes, yes, I'm pretty sure it is popcorn. Kyouya," he stage-whispered, "who got popcorn flavor?"

Ignoring the twins—whose mission was accomplished anyway, as evidenced by their chummy grins—Kyouya consulted his notes and told the other, "I believe that's Nekozawa."

"Nekozawa-sempai is our Christmas Saturnalia's Lord of Disrule!"

At which time, Nekozawa nearly choked on his figgy pudding. "What did you just say?" he muttered as all eyes turned to him and Beelzenev. This was the first he had heard of a bean ballot, and he was pretty sure it wasn't an idea the host club would have come up with on their own. "Because if this is some sort of prank, so help me, Suou . . ."

Tamaki, naturally, was beaming as he waved the other over to the altar. "Congratulations! Come on up here, Sempai!"

Someone was going to take the fall for this humiliation, be it one of his underlings or Suou himself, Nekozawa thought as he walked the gauntlet to the mezzanine. They all knew how much he hated being in the limelight. A little warning beforehand would have been only decent, at the very least. "You can't be serious—" he began to protest to Tamaki.

But the host king clapped him on the back before he could finish and said to their guests, his free arm outstretched: "Behold—your fake king!"

"My liege!" barked Minagi and Torihara as they both fell automatically to one knee, the latter getting a face-full of crow wing for his troubles.

"And behold his consort," said the twins, pointing as one, "the princess of the pea—Renge!"

The girl in question started. "_What?_"

Nor was she the only one confused. "Eh?" Tamaki blinked and Haruhi groaned. The black magic club members exchanged glances. Even they had heard nothing of this.

"Check her hollow ring," said Hikaru.

"And you'll find all the proof you need," said Kaoru.

With Honey and Mori and a dozen guests looking over her shoulder in anticipation, Renge did as they said and opened the little hinged lid over the ring on her finger. Sure enough—to her complete and utter shock—inside was an uncooked split pea. "How did that . . ." was all she could manage, while Honey fanned her and Mori prepared himself to break her fall.

"Well, this is unexpected," Tamaki said. Then he shrugged and chuckled. "But what the hey. You never know what's gonna happen on Twelfth Night. Get up here, Renge, so we can crown our unregal king and queen!"

"You're taking this all too well," Haruhi muttered at his side.

And grudgingly picking up her skirts, Renge made her way to the steps. She just knew there had to be a catch—she'd seen _Carrie_—and when it happened, there would be hell to pay.

* * *

The (Anti-)King of the Winter Carnival

* * *

An awkward and equally puzzled look was all that the two who had so recently shared a coat closet had time to exchange before Tamaki placed a gold foil crown, like the kind handed out to kids at fast food joints, atop Nekozawa's head.

Kanazuki handled the pea princess. "We didn't have a crown ready for a queen," she explained, "so this laurel wreath will have to do."

"Er . . . thanks," Renge said with a blush.

"It should also discourage evil spirits from making any moves on your soul. You're going to need all the protection you can get."

Renge gulped. She didn't like the way Kanazuki cast a quick glance at her club president when she said that. For that matter, she wasn't sure any of this was a good idea.

When the coronation was finished, Tamaki led the crowd in a cry of: "Three cheers for the mock king!"

"Hip, hip, hurrah!" the guests cheered with eggnog glasses raised, with a couple of "Banzai!"s thrown in for good measure.

"Okay." Tamaki rubbed his hands and looked at the other members of the black magic club. "Now what?"

It didn't take long for the cheers and the full weight of being the ball's misruler to sink in. Slowly the embarrassment Nekozawa had shown the whole matter evaporated in reverse proportion to the width of his grin. Bolstered by everyone's support, he threw off his czarist robes, revealing a sharp uniform underneath—of gold and silver brocade fur-lined and tied with a silk sash, and studded with medals and ribbons he couldn't possibly have earned himself but that nonetheless made him shine like a golden Chairman Kaga from the mezzanine.

"Thank you all for your adoration," he said wickedly, Beelzenev nodding and gesticulating along with him on his hand. "I hope you have all enjoyed partaking of our club's humble offerings. But as they say, all play and no sacrifice makes Taro a damned boy, for nothing we enjoy here tonight comes without a price."

Minagi and Torihara approached him on bent knees, each with something to hold out to him in supplication.

"Your victims for the human sacrifice, my liege," said the third-year boy.

"My liege, your lighter wand," said the second-.

"_What!_" said Renge.

"Thank you, comrades. You serve your master well," said Nekozawa as he held aloft what he took from Minagi—a china plate with a festive pattern of candy canes laden with gingerbread men.

"We give thanks to the powers of darkness who have watched over our club this past year for this bounty we share tonight. That we may continue to have their support in the year to come, we bring a sacrifice in human form to thee, Lord Beelzenev, who resideth in the image of this curse doll."

"All hail Beelzenev!" the black magic club chorused with one hand raised toward the hand puppet.

"For I have a clan of gingerbread men! Here a man. There a man. Lots of gingerbread men." Nekozawa put down the plate and took up the lighter wand with his free hand, which he tried several times to get started. "Take a couple if you wish, O Lord—they're on this dish."

As he bent over the plate of cookies with the lighter wand, intent on getting them to catch on fire—which was proving easier said than done—Renge could stand by silently no longer.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" she lambasted him. "You're doing this all wrong!"

"You're welcome to try if you think you can do better." Nekozawa offered her the wand.

Which she promptly threw down, to the other's chagrin. "Can't you see you're going to ruin everything? This is clearly overstepping the line!"

"I have to agree with Renge," Tamaki edged into the conversation. "Do you really have to set the gingerbread men on fire? Can't Beelzenev eat their spiritual forms as they are, like Santa Claus does?"

"You dolt," Renge turned on him, "I'm talking about the human sacrifice! There is nothing about this whole charade that is even remotely elegant or host-like! Don't you have a problem with that? Barbarism—pure and utter barbarism, that's what this is."

"Actually, using baked goods as stand-ins for human victims is supposed to make the rite more humane and civilized," Nekozawa tried in his own defense. "The tradition dates back to pre-Columbian Mexico when priests burned bread people stuffed with pig innards—"

"_I don't care!_ Don't you get it? Gingerbread men are supposed to be eaten, not sacrificed to demonic powers! You're missing the whole point! This isn't what Christmas is about!"

So much for trying to be rational. . . . Nekozawa balled his fists. "And you obviously don't understand the true importance of offerings to the holiday season, foreigner!"

The black magic club watched with fear as Renge literally filled with air at their president's last words, and knew the medusa was soon to follow. Nor were the hosts at all pleased with this latest development. A few uncertain expressions when Nekozawa started his little sermon of sorts was nothing that couldn't be smoothed over; the black magic club's true colors were so farcical anyway it would have been easy for the host club to dismiss them as harmless pageantry. However, the uneasy whispers back and forth and glances toward the door—especially now that the mock king and queen of the ball had lowered themselves to debating who was more foreign like a couple of children—made some, not least of whom Kyouya, panic.

"Argh!" it made Tamaki scream, "this is insane! I don't even know what we're supposed to be celebrating anymore! Isn't there anyone here who can tell me what winter solstice is all about?"

"Sure, Sempai," Haruhi spoke up. "I can tell you what winter solstice is all about."

The sophomoric insults died on Renge and Nekozawa's lips, and Beelzenev's ears perked up in interest.

The restless attendees turned their attention back to the mezzanine, calmed by her reassuring tone of voice and just as eager for an explanation as the host king.

"Lights, please," Kyouya said.

And the ballroom dimmed and it was good. A projector from the transient realm of who-knows-where from which Renge's high-powered motor and R'lyeh were periodically known to spawn, appeared and, with a whir and flash of lights, proceeded to project an old instructional, science video onto the face of the altar stone.

"You see," Haruhi began, "the Earth spins on a tilted axis. So as it revolves around the sun, the position of the sun in the sky with respect to the ecliptic—that is, the imaginary plane that intersects the equator—changes gradually from south to north, then north to south again during the course of the year. The shortest 'day' of the year in the northern hemisphere, the day with the fewest hours of daylight, is when the sun is at its farthest south toward the end of December, and this is called the winter solstice."

The two-dimensional demonstration of the Earth in its orbit came to a stop and disappeared with the resurrection of the lights.

And Haruhi smiled. "And that's really all winter solstice is about, Sempai." Then she put her finger to her chin on second thought. "Although that means it's actually midsummer in the southern hemisphere. . . ."

Though they would never have admitted it to one another, Nekozawa and Renge could not help feeling quite ashamed of themselves after Haruhi's simple and humble explanation—humbled, one might even say, by the cosmic insignificance their little spat was thrown into by the perspective she provided. Filled with mutual admiration, they felt pulled forward simultaneously, her name on their lips, "Haru—"

"—_hiiii!_" Tamaki exclaimed, as he glomped the girl in question in front of everyone in the ball's attendance—everyone, that is, who only knew her as a boy. "That's our little scholarship student!" he gushed as he rubbed his cheek against her head. "Haruhi, you make your daddy so proud! Mm-hm, yes you do! Ah-ha-ha . . ."

"Sempai . . ." a mortified Haruhi gasped, "it's just basic science. Don't tell me you didn't know that already." Then again, leave it to Tamaki to gleefully embrace any opportunity to be taken as an ignoramus if it gave him an excuse to smother her with affection. . . . In front of a hundred of their peers, who didn't share their secret. . . . Who were all staring. "I can't breathe, Sempai. . . ."

It was not immediate, but as he watched Tamaki make the usual fool of himself, the smile did slowly return to Nekozawa's face, however without the zeal it had had before. One who was watching might have read it as the smile of one who had been awed by a revelation. Then again, perhaps it was nothing more than the reflection of a sudden turn of good humor too private and introverted to adequately express outwardly. He didn't offer any other apology than that inexplicable smile as he suggested to Renge that they fulfill their electoral duties in leading the attendees in a dance, if only out of duty and nothing else; and reluctantly accepting—but accepting nonetheless—was humble pie enough for her.

What would become of the gingerbread men was up to the other members of the black magic club now, but this was nothing entirely new. As the music swelled around them once again, the crowd began to break up as couples and friends went back to whatever they had been doing before the interruption to elect the mock king—which Haruhi, still in the grip of a dazed host king, could hardly be more thankful for.

"You two fixed the election in Nekozawa's favor, didn't you?" Kyouya asked the twins while everyone's attention was otherwise occupied.

Not that it was really a question. The looks on their faces already said guilty as charged, so they shrugged. "We thought long and hard about it," said Hikaru.

"And we figured the black magic club would get the best response if he were crowned king," said Kaoru.

"A simple matter of logic."

"Like getting the best ending in one of Renge's love sims."

"It wasn't any skin off our noses," Hikaru said while his brother nodded. "Besides, we hate popcorn-flavored jelly beans and it was a convenient excuse for getting rid of them."

"Seriously, what moron thought popcorn would make a good jelly bean?"

"Then the pea in Renge's ring?" said Kyouya.

"Slipped it in while she wasn't looking."

"And I suppose the absinthe in the punch bowl and the mistletoe that's been causing so many problems were your doings as well."

"Ask me no questions, I tell you no lies," was the very careful response.

Kyouya removed his glasses for a moment to rub the bridge of his nose. "I do hope you realize I'm not in the habit of rewarding delinquent behavior, especially when it doesn't pay off. You two should have considered the possibility," he pointed out, "that this grand plan of yours might backfire on the black magic club."

"Unless that was our plan from the beginning," Hikaru said.

When he said that, Kyouya found himself genuinely shocked, which did not happen often, needless to say.

But Kaoru's lopsided smile quelled some of the unease that crept upon him. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see which it is," he said. "Our lord did say, after all: nothing that bears our club's name has ever been a complete failure."

At which point Kyouya was wise enough to let it go. There were certain things a person who knew anything about the host club and its members just didn't do. They didn't wake Honey from a nap, they didn't read too deeply into anything Tamaki said when excited, and they didn't make wagers with the twins.

It was at that moment that Torihara happened to ever-so-nonchalantly look into the stoup with the loop and see that every bean contained therein was the same flavor. "Hey, these are all—"

That was all he got out before Hikaru and Kaoru each clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.

"And god bless us, every one!"

* * *

_Awaiting denouement. . . ._


	5. There's Always Room For Dessert

The Host Club Is Back In Session  
. . . Sort Of

* * *

It would have been a stretch of the truth to say that the evening of the ball had a completely happy ending, an outright fallacy to think that the latter half of the soon-to-be infamous Christmas Saturnalia went as well as the first half. The entire affair did not go off, as they say, without its fair share of hitches.

But the decency of the rich would not allow for anything less than a civil ending at very least—strained perhaps, not as magical as it was hard to convince people a pumpkin was a carriage once it had already changed back, but still far from the disaster host and black magic club alike were acutely aware it could have become. Perhaps it was knowing that it was the last school function before the New Year's break that was responsible for the benefit of the doubt attendees gave the ball; or perhaps it had more to do with the irresistibility of the hosts, who by this time were quite proficient in rescuing a situation. However, one thing that could be said with absolute certainty was that, as Tamaki had rightly spoken, the event most definitely could not have been called a complete failure. And so their track record continued.

Vacation had passed before it even seemed to start, students returning to classes with slates wiped clean by the changing of the year, their memories of that night softened by family celebrations and the general holiday cheer that assaulted all who went out in public. The first day back was a gloomy winter day indeed. Gray covered everything, not least of all the cloudy sky that constantly threatened but never delivered upon snow.

Partly because of that, partly because of lingering holiday fatigue, and partly because of the mysterious absence of the twins, the host club was only operating at half speed; however, they had found a very fitting use for Mori, as his deep, monotone voice was perfect for reading out the verses on the One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets cards.

"Long as the long tail/ of the mountain pheasants/ in the foot-wearying hills . . ."

Honey immediately began scrounging through the cards scattered on the mat for the ending lines like a pig going after truffles, making the girls playing with him laugh as they tried to find the one with the appropriate finishing lines before him, and earning a chastisement from Tamaki who complained he couldn't see and Honey wasn't playing fair. And that was why he kept grabbing the wrong cards and putting their team in last place? Haruhi wanted to know, to which he replied that he was sure it was just bad new year's luck.

Haruhi was even more sure it had everything to do with classical grammar being one of Tamaki's worst subjects, but she kept that thought to herself.

Then again, perhaps there was some truth to his excuse. Perhaps it should have been taken as an omen, for when the mysterious set of doors opened a few seconds later onto the host club's meeting that afternoon, it was with an uncharacteristic essence of black roses that, if the club's members remembered, they had witnessed on one occasion before.

"Suou-kun?" came the tremulous voice from within as the doors creaked open.

The club's female guests turned at the sound of that (as didn't happen nearly often enough in the host club, as far as they were concerned) unfamiliar male voice, and promptly forgot what they had been talking about. A few mouths fell open and a few cups of tea almost got spilled. They could hardly believe what their eyes were seeing. For standing in the doorway, calling Tamaki's name in that familiar tone of voice, was a third-year boy whose fair face rivaled the host club king's in beauty—beneath a mane of glossy black, chin-length hair.

They gasped as the meaning of it sank in. Tamaki was wanted by an equally handsome young man!

"Suou-kun . . ." he repeated as he stepped tentatively into the gloomy room. "Aren't you going to _invite me in?_ After all, a new level of _intimacy_ has been forged between us by our _shared vexations_ before the holiday, has it not, or have you forgotten so soon?"

This, needless to say, prompted a hearty round of squeeing.

"Has it really?" said the person in question with the usual casual raking of fingers through glittering hair, the card game left forgotten. The girls all turned to him in anticipation. "Ah, is this the sweet drumbeat of camaraderie I feel uplifting my heart? But . . . may I ask who's calling?"

Tamaki started. He dropped his hand and blinked several times. "Heh . . . Nekozawa? Oh, er, I guess our casa is your . . . Sorry, but I didn't recognize you at f—"

Before he could finish, this mysterious stranger whom Tamaki called Nekozawa strode forward and grabbed both of the host king's shoulders, and pressed his mouth to each of Tamaki's cheeks.

Uncomfortable silence descended in the third music room for all of three seconds (as that seemed to be the given interval for such things), before it erupted again in enraptured squeals and the sweet, agonized biting of handkerchiefs. It may have been freezing outside, but inside the third music room was smoking hot. "Wow," said a stunned Haruhi to a furiously scribbling Kyouya. "I know what Hikaru and Kaoru said, but I guess I had to see it with my own eyes. I really thought for sure they'd wimp out at the real stuff."

"You underestimate your own sex," said the other. "No offense."

"None taken."

No one was as surprised as Tamaki, though, who froze and nearly tipped over when Nekozawa let him go. "Happy new year, Suou," the third-year said. At first, with his unusually bright spirits, he had seemed as one possessed—or at very least haunted, over the break, by a certain threesome of ghosts—but the old Nekozawa fire returned when he added, "Seeing as I'm indebted to you and your club for your help, I guess I'll let you off the proverbial hook without a curse. . . . _Just this once_. After all, it is a new year, and a beginning is a very delicate time. . . ."

"Great," was all Tamaki could form coherently at that moment. Needless to say, he wasn't so sure what Nekozawa said about the hook was true. He could still feel his lips on him . . . Not to mention everyone else's eyes. Tamaki shook himself. "What?" he asked the crowd. "His family's Russian! It's like shaking hands to those people."

"Oh well. It seems the whole school thinks our lord is bi anyway, after he glomped Haruhi at the Christmas ball."

"I guess calling himself Haruhi's father was a self-fulfilling prophecy after all."

Tamaki looked up to see the twins trailing his arch nemesis, one holding Nekozawa's dark robe, the other, Beelzenev, and both grinning evilly. "You! You traitors!" he wailed. "You set me up for this, didn't you?"

"Naa, Hikaru, did you hear something just now?" Kaoru asked, wiggling a pinky finger in his ear.

"Must have been a little bug buzzing in our ears," said Hikaru, while Tamaki went off to lament in a corner, "O twins, my twins, why have you forsaken me?"

Amongst the fawning worshipers of this false idol of an intruder the host club had was Renge, who said when she was able to get a better look: "So, that's not a wig. You dyed your hair, Sempai? Your beautiful golden hair?"

Nekozawa's smile fell under her watery gaze. "Why?" The tone of her voice made him uneasy. "You hate it, don't you? I think Kirimi hates it . . ."

"No, I like it!" she insisted with clasped hands. "Dark-haired characters are so much more mysterious."

"And so sexy!" other girls agreed.

"You said, you're indebted to us," mysterious, dark-haired character Exhibit A—Kyouya—said to Nekozawa. "May I ask for what? After that mock king stunt backfired, disbandment must be looking like more of a reality for your club than ever."

"And who, exactly, was responsible for the bean ballot?" Haruhi muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

Nekozawa, however, looked as though he had no idea what Kyouya was talking about. "Disbandment? I should think not." His skeptical look melted into a broad grin and a decadent glance. "Quite the opposite, in fact. The evening of the ball saw the most purchases ever made from the black magic club in any one day—any one week, in fact. And thanks in part to the host club's drawing power, we actually have a mailing list with addresses besides our own to send our electronic newsletters to now. A lot of interest has been generated in our humble group as a result of the ball. Everyone is starting to realize what a role the dark arts can play in their daily lives. We're even thinking of organizing a costumed, interactive showing of a certain cult film before graduation. Let us know if the host club wants in on the action and I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.

"Yes. . . ." Nekozawa was so taken with himself he failed to see the ungrateful and/or uninterested looks on some of the hosts' faces. No doubt about it: he definitely reminded Haruhi of a certain someone. Same mold, huh? More like twins separated at birth. "I can leave Ouran without a care knowing my club will be in good hands in the years to come."

"They grow up so fast!" Tamaki sobbed in sudden sympathy.

For which Haruhi shot him a look that said she wasn't buying. "Graduation's not for at least another two months," she murmured. "More'n a year for you, Sempai."

That stony look was shaken off her face a second later as Nekozawa suddenly took up both her hands in his. "And I owe it all to you, Haruhi."

"Huh?" said Renge.

"Me?" said Haruhi.

"_'Haruhi'?_" said Tamaki and the twins, with a wide-eyed Honey catching flies and pointing in horror right beside them, as the girls gathered around to hang on the dark prince's every word.

"Yes," Nekozawa said as he stared into her eyes. Somehow the menacing gleam in his own wide blue ones and the intensity of his breathy voice made the sincerity of his words a little harder in coming across as he told her, "On more than one occasion it has been you who has come to my club's aid—to my aid. When I was in doubt, blinded by the light, you took my hand, showed me to the cool shadows and restored my faith—plunged my spirits back into the deep, nutrient-filled waters of the abyss that I, gasping like a fish on the shore, had been craving, feared dead to me forever—"

"Huh?" the hosts chorused, completely lost.

"Haruhi!" Swiping the hand puppet from Hikaru's hands in one deft move, Nekozawa held it out to her, miming along with his words: "Surely Beelzenev has smiled upon you. We cannot ignore the meaning of his portent. Fujioka Haruhi, we humbly request you allow us to make you an honorary member—nay, a standard of inspiration for the black magic club!"

"You want me to be your cheerleader?" Haruhi clarified in an unenthusiastic voice.

In response, Nekozawa pushed a little Beelzenev-shaped bell into her hand; then, as she stood blinking and holding that, he unfurled the robe that had been lying innocently across Kaoru's hands and, before the twins could object, swept it around her shoulders, gently raising the hood into place over her head.

Haruhi nearly swam in the get-up, but it must have been sufficient for Nekozawa if his reaction were any indication. "How arcanely winsome!" he praised the end product in a truly fiendish way.

The host club's guests might not have understood him completely, but they did have to agree that this cloak-and-dagger (or rather, cloak and bell) Haruhi was truly "win"—whatever that meant.

"I knew this day would come!" Tamaki wailed, going into protective father mode (or was it bastion of morality mode? The distinction was often difficult to make) and pointing a finger at the black magic club president as if to exorcise him from the music room. "I expected someday you mole people would come bargaining for Haruhi's pure soul. What do I always say, Kyouya? Give the devil his due and he'll take the hindmost!"

"When have you ever said that?" Kyouya wanted to know.

"I'm the hindmost?" Haruhi groaned.

"Never mind that, it's the gist of the thing. Nekozawa!" Tamaki cursed his diabolically grinning nemesis with raised fist, "I won't allow you to taint Haruhi's radiant soul with your debauchery!"

"I-I never said I accepted. . . ." Haruhi tried to tell him, extending a trembling hand from beneath the huge black cloak (and who was talking about debauchery anyway?), but it was no use. Tamaki was deaf to the world.

And as the two club presidents exchanged platitudes and the twins mourned for Haruhi's innocence, and Kyouya took notes and Honey and Mori did their best pretending they didn't exist around cups of hot instant coffee, and their guests took it all in like the production it had become, another typical afternoon passed for the host club, proving the year may change but the battle between light and dark would always remain, indisputably, unceasingly, sophomoric.

And on that note let us depart, and Beelzenev bless us—every one.


End file.
